Eugene Onegin

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Image courtesy of Nitbcn.

Eugene Onegin is an opera in three acts composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto, organized by the composer himself, very closely follows certain passages in Alexander Pushkin's 1825-1832 novel in verse, retaining much of his poetry. The story concerns a selfish hero who lives to regret his blasé rejection of a young woman's love and his careless incitement of a fatal duel with his best friend.

This new co-production with the Oslo Opera and the Teatro Real de Madrid perfectly addresses all the nuances of Tatiana Larin’s character: the transition from a novel-loving girl blossoming into a cosmopolitan and elegant young princess. Awaiting her, love at first sight: the enigmatic Onegin, who sings the title role, an aristocrat obsessed with appearances who could never be happy with a country girl like Tatiana and discovers the power of love too late.  

In November 1836, the French Lieutenant Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d’Anthès was harassing the beautiful Natalia Nikolayevna Goncharova, Pushkin’s wife, and Pushkin challenged him to a duel. Pride that would cost him everything. Under a snowy sky on the evening of February 8, 1837, and at the height of his glory, Alexander Pushkin, the Russian Lord Byron, died in a pistol duel sparked by this amorous confrontation, immortalizing a way of life that defines countless young people who are as much in love as they are depressed. Romanticism: a way of thinking and feeling shared by numerous artists for more than a century. Tchaikovsky, who was already 40 years old in 1879 when Eugene Onegin premiered at the Moscow Conservatory, could never have imagined that only three years later it would be performed at the great Bolshoi.

Closely linked to the original text, this production by Christof Loy eschews traditionalism in favor of minimalist scenography that helps to underline the inner worlds of the characters and bring us closer to the personal drama and obsessions of a Tatiana “bursting with life.”

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