The British actor Ralph Fiennes, star of the papal election drama Conclave, will make his opera directing debut with The Opéra de Paris in 2026 helming Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Semyon Bychkov will conduct and Boris Pinkhasovich will sing the title role.

It’s a neat fit. Fiennes fell for Alexander Pushkin’s verse novel Eugene Onegin when he was a drama student. In 1999 his sister Martha Fiennes directed him in the title role in a British-American film adaptation, directed by his sister Martha Fiennes.

Ralph Fiennes in the 1999 film Onegin.

Meanwhile, Fiennes is honing his directorial chops directing a Ralph Fiennes Season at Bath’s Theatre Royal from 27 June.