Covent Garden
Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin
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Covent Garden, Central London | Opera | £13-£270
| What's On | Book |
24 September–14 October 2024
Address: Royal Opera House, Bow St, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9DD | Get Directions
Telephone: +44 20 7304 4000
A tale of young love builds to a climactic reckoning between past and present in Tchaikovsky's romantic opera.
TWO LIFE-CHANGING ENCOUNTERS
Tatyana spends her days lost in the world of romantic books, while to her carefree sister Olga, love is just a game. When Olga’s admirer, the poet Lensky, arrives at their country estate with the brooding Eugene Onegin, sparks fly. Tatyana immediately falls for Onegin and declares her love for him in a letter. Onegin rejects her, telling her that he is not ready for marriage. Heartbroken, Tatyana is forced to put on a brave face at her own birthday party, and matters worsen when Onegin begins flirting with Olga. Lensky is outraged and challenges Onegin to a duel, with deadly consequences.
Years later, Onegin and Tatyana meet again at a ball in St Petersburg. Haunted by grief and regret, Onegin realises he has made a terrible mistake. But does Tatyana still feel the same?
Background
American director Ted Huffman (4.48: Psychosis) makes his much-anticipated debut for the Royal Opera House Main Stage with a new production that blurs the boundaries between memory, longing and desire. Gordon Bintner stars in the title role, alongside Kristina Mkhitaryan’s Tatyana, Liparit Avetisyan’s Lensky and Avery Amereau making her Royal Opera debut as Olga. Henrik Nánási conducts, drawing out the many, and often conflicting, emotions at the heart of Tchaikovsky’s most popular opera.
A Russian literary classic
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky’s best-loved opera, Eugene Onegin, is based on Alexander Pushkin’s 1833 verse novel of the same name. There was initially some concern that Tchaikovsky would spoil this pinnacle of Russian literature by setting it to music, but Eugene Onegin quickly became a firm favourite with Russian audiences. Within a decade of its 1879 premiere it had been performed over one hundred times in St Petersburg.
Poetry through music
By contrast with the satirical tone of the Pushkin poem, Tchaikovsky’s opera is sincere in its sympathy for its characters. The title of the opera may reflect the disillusioned hero of the work, but the heart of the opera belongs to Tatyana, as is shown in the tenderness of her music. Tchaikovsky’s music imbues the interactions between them with intensity of feeling, and when the protagonists meet again, many years later, they are haunted by the memories – and melodies – of the past. You will hear her motif in the strings at the very start of the opera: a sighing, searching melody that gains full expression in her letter scene in Act I – an outpouring of devotion, in which the soprano voice soars over the orchestra. Other famous tunes include the Act III Polonaise, which opens the grand ballroom scene: a precursor to the climactic final encounter between Tatyana and Onegin. Lensky’s aria, immediately prior to the duel scene, is also a poignant meditation on lost dreams of youth, and young heartbreak.
Join us for our exclusive Insights: Pushkin and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin exploring the music and novel that inspired the opera and the ballet.
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