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A thrilling cast of singers, ex­cel­lent con­ductor and wonderful playing by the Cinc­innati Sympho­ny Or­chestra overcame lacklus­ter staging in Cinc­innati Opera's "Eugene One­gin," which opened Thursday night and repeats Sat­urday in Mu­sic Hall.

It was the Opera's sec­ond out­ing of Tchaikovsky's mas­ter­piece in the compa­ny's 91-year history, and its first to be sung in Russian.

The opera is based on Alexander Pushkin's po­em of the same name. The three pro­tag­o­n­ists made the lengthy evening worthwhile, starting with Moscow-born sopra­no Ta­tiana Monog­a­rova, who triumphed in her Cinc­innati debut as the hero­ine, Tatyana. Baritone Nathan Gunn, making his role and compa­ny debut, appeared born to play the role of the worldly Eugene One­gin. Fresh-voiced tenor William Burden was superb as Lensky, the po­et doomed to die in a du­el with his friend.

Tchaikovsky's mu­sic is re­m­i­n­is­cent of his bal­lets, with swirling waltzes, lyrical arias and magnif­i­cent cho­ruses. So I found Mark Stresh­insky's staging frus­trating, of­ten with the cho­rus just standing around, or "frozen" in mid-dance.

Luckily, there were those terrif­ic sing­ing actors. Monog­a­rova was brilliant as Tatyana, the shy, vulnerable country girl. She transformed into a full-blown woman in her superbly-acted Letter Scene, in which she poured out her heart to One­gin.

Gunn was fine as One­gin, an out­sider who lurked around the edges of ball­rooms, looking bored. (The di­rector had One­gin ma­te­rialize dur­ing the Letter Scene, which worked.) He carried the char­ac­ter well and was vocally smooth. El­egant and aloof, he was more broth­erly than cru­el as he gen­tly rebuffed Tatyana with supple warmth to his phras­ing.

We didn't see re­al emotion until his final scene with Tatyana, when he re­alizes too late that he loves her.

There could not have been a finer Lensky than Burden, who charmed in his love duet with Olga, an ex­cel­lent mezzo-sopra­no named Edyta Kulczak. Burden's "Kuda, kuda," Lensky's heartbreaking aria before the du­el, was deeply felt and a high­light of the evening.

De­nis Sedov was mem­o­rable as the aging Prince Grem­in, and de­liv­ered a touch­ing account of his love for his young wife. As the nurse, Mika Shigematsu gave a deeply af­fecting performance.

Stacey Rishoi added depth to the char­ac­ter of Madame La­rina. Steven Cole's Tri­quet was too exag­gerated, and his name-day song had pitch prob­lems.

The Cinc­innati Opera Cho­rus, pre­pared by Henri Venanzi, sang wonderfully all evening.

The ser­viceable production from Indiana Uni­versity was re­alis­tic, with ef­fective light­ing by Thomas C. Hase, but long intermis­sions and lengthy scene changes caused the evening to stretch a half-hour longer than antic­ipated.

With such bland staging, the or­chestra, con­ducted by Vasily Pe­trenko, played a central role in this production, projecting drama, emotion and much-needed move­ment. Also making his debut, Pe­trenko, chief con­ductor of the Royal Liv­erpool Philharmon­ic, led with au­thor­ity, sweep and power, and pulled back per­fectly to accompa­ny the singers.

Thanks to the or­chestra's ex­cel­lent playing and re­fined so­los, Tchaikovsky's wonderful melodies lin­gered long af­ter the curtain fell.

Cinc­innati Opera's "Eugene One­gin" repeats at 7:30 p.m. Sat­urday in Mu­sic Hall. Tickets: 513-241-2742, www.cinc­innati­opera.org.