EUGENE ONEGIN: Tchaikovsky's Masterpeice

I first heard Eugene Onegin when I was fifteen and a sophomore in high school.  I also had a boyfriend at the time.  The opera was being broadcast over the radio as part of the Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network and Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky sang the title role.

Last night, I went with my dad to see Eugene Onegin at the Overture Center in Madison. Baritone Hyung Yun sang the title role and he's pretty good. Tatyana was sung by soprano Maria Kanyova.

The character of Eugene Onegin is nothing new.  He is every upper-class twit who believes that the world exists for his own personal amusement.  And in Act Three when he has come to St. Petersburg after wandering all over the world, he still hasn't grown up even at twenty six.

He snobbishly rejects the love of the humble country girl Tatyana Larina, but six years later after she's already been married for two years, he tries to get her to abandon everything for him.  And he rightly deserves the emotional smack in face he gets when Tatyana tells him to leave her forever.

Act One, Scene One opens in the provincial countryside.  Madame Larina, a widowed landowner, is making jam with Filipevna, her daughters' old nurse.  Tatyana is seventeen and her sister Olga (played to perfection by mezzo-soprano Jamie van Eyck), is sixteen.  They sing about love and passion while their mother listens and recalls the time when she felt those those feelings too.  The peasants come in from the harvest bringing tribute to Madame Larina and they dance. After they leave, the shy and dreamy Tatyana starts to read from one of her romantic novels, while the vivacious and coquettish Olga laughs and teases her.  Madame Larina notices Tatyana looking pensive and quiet and asks if she is ill.  Tatyana tells her that she is caught up in her novel.  Madame Larina tells her that it is all fiction.  Suddenly Olga's fiance Vladamir Lensky arrives with a friend from the city, Eugene Onegin.  While Lensky courts Olga, Onegin goes for a walk with Tatyana, who falls immediately in love with the handsome stranger.  Later, Madame Larina calls them in for dinner, and Filipyevna suspects that Tatyana has fallen in love.

           Scene Two finds us in Tatyana's bedroom where she asks Filipyevna about her first love.  Filipevna tells her that her marriage was arranged when she was only thirteen; being in love was out of the question.  She asks Tatyana if she's okay; Tatyana simply says that she's is love and asks her nurse to leave, but not without asking for a pen and some paper.  After Filipevna leaves, Tatyana, flushed with a wild compulsive love for Onegin, writes him a letter and fantasizes about who she believes him to be.  In fact, she stays up all night writing the letter.  In the morning, she gives it to Filipevna, whose grandson will take the letter to Onegin.

         Scene Three takes place in the garden where peasant women are picking berries and singing about flirting with young men.  Tatyana enters and sees Onegin approaching.  She is afraid of how he will think of her.  Onegin enters and tells her that while he moved by her sentiments, he is not a man made for marriage and will cease to love Tatyana after a while.  Translation: "I'm a man of great importance, you're just a coltish little country girl who reads too much."  Tatyana is crushed.

  

Act Two, Scene One takes place a few months later.  It is Tatyana's eighteenth birthday and her family is throwing a grand ball for her.  All their neighbors have come to celebrate, including Eugene Onegin.  Lensky persuaded him to come with.  Onegin dances with Tatyana, but some of the neighbors have heard about what happened in the garden.  Onegin gets fed up with their talk.  He's bored and blames Lensky for his boredom.  To get back at Lensky, Onegin flirts with Olga and dances many dances with her.  This arouses Lensky's jealousy and he confronts Olga.  She tells him that he is overreacting.  This encounter is interrupted by Monsieur Triquet; a French neighbor and Tatyana's tutor.  He serenades Tatyana in French.  Afterward, the dancing begins again and Onegin dances with Olga again.  Lensky decides that he's had enough and challenges Onegin to a duel.  Madame Larina begs them not to fight in her house.  Lensky believes that Olga has betrayed him and dumps her in front of everybody.  Although Onegin asks Lensky to not make a scene, he accepts Lensky's challenge, and between the two of them, they ruin Tatyana's birthday.  Olga pleads with Lensky but her words fall on deaf ears.

                  Scene Two takes place at dawn.  Lensky and his second, Zaretski, are present.  Zaretski wonders why Onegin is late (he follows the rules of dueling to the point of absurdity).  Lensky muses on his short life and imagines Olga going to his grave to mourn him.  Onegin enters with his valet, Guillot, acting as his second.  Both Onegin and Lensky believe that they have acted foolishly and wish they could reconcile and be friends again, but they are both too proud do so.  The duel proceeds and Lensky is killed.

Act Three, Scene one takes place six years later at the palace of Prince Gremin where a grand ball is in progress.  Onegin is twenty-six and depressed.  He has been wandering the world in search of entertainment and escape from the memory of Lensky, whose bloody ghost Onegin believes still haunts him.  He has no job, no wife, no obligations, and no purpose.  Suddenly, the elderly Prince Gremin enters with his beautiful young wife on his arm.  Onegin recognizes her as Tatyana, the same girl he rejected all those years ago.  Tatyana recognizes him and prays for strength.  Gremin tells Onegin that Tatyana is his wife and he is just crazy about her.  He got fed up with all the phonies he saw around.  Then Tatyana came along and she is the complete opposite of the aristocrats and he saw it.  He then introduces Onegin and Tatyana, but Tatyana says that she is tired and leaves with her husband.  Onegin suddenly realizes that he has fallen in love with Tatyana.

             The final scene takes place in Tatyana's boudoir.  Onegin has sent her a letter, just as she did to him.  Tatyana is troubled by the old passion and weeps.  Onegin enters and throws himself at her feet.  Tatyana regains herself and tells him to get up.  When Onegin declares his love for her, she questions him.  He broke her heart once before.  Why does he come running to her now?  Is it her position?  Her husband's reputation?  Why should she believe him when he's proven himself to be a self-centered young man?  Onegin says he made a mistake and loves her.  Tatyana weeps and laments that love was once so close but now the past is past.  She admits that she still loves Onegin, but she is married now and will be faithful to her husband.  Onegin tried to force her to come with him and abandon her husband, her duties, everything for him.  Onegin continually begs Tatyana to give in, but finally she shouts "Farewell forever," and leaves Onegin to his despair.

The settings and acting were something else.  The first scene of Act One was the exterior of the Larin home. Just before the curtain rose, Onegin walked out onstage looking bored and annoyed.  Then the curtain rose to reveal a transparent screen in front of the scene one set.  Onegin stood for a moment, then left the stage.    On the left was the house which people went in and out of, and there was a table on the far right where Madame Larina and Filipevna sat making jam.  This production had Olga behaving like a little girl and several times she snarfed some of the jam.  There were autumn birch trees and fallen leaves as well.  The peasants' dance was something else.

                Scene two had Tatyana's bed, bookshelf, desk, and chair simply out of a platform in front of a screen.  When the letter scene is over, the platform is removed and we're back to the exterior of the house, as if Tatyana had wandered outside while she was fantasizing about Onegin (they actually showed her becoming aware of being outside in her nightgown!).  Filipevna is simply surprised to see her out of bed so soon.

               Scene three took place in the garden.  The screen rose to reveal to the peasant women picking berries.  there were two rows of berry bushes and what looked like those log chairs or whatever they are that you'd find at a summer camp.  When Onegin gave Tatyana what is often called his sermon, she sits on one of these little chairs.  After Onegin's lecture, she runs off.

               Now this production divided the second act between acts One and Three.  The first scene of Act two took place right after the Garden Scene.  This scene was the ballroom of the Larin house.  During this scene, an amazing waltz plays.  The walls of the room were a yellowish color.  There was a refreshment table in the background and over that was a wreath that resembled  a Christmas decoration.  There were also dining tables in the scene where guests sat and gossiped while couples danced.  Some of the men left the room and came back at the end of the waltz with several bottles of wine. In this production, Monsieur Triquet looked like Harpo and Bilbo put together and clad in goofy 19th Century costume.  When Onegin and Lensky's fight really got ugly and they began physically fighting with each other, several men pulled them back and really restrained them.

           Scene two  took place in a grove of trees at dawn.  There was a little light streaming through the trees.  Now, I've seen the duel on YouTube before, but the part where Lensky and Onegin actually turn and shoot still sent shivers up my spine and Onegin's gunshot still startled me.  That's simply a function of seeing the performance live as opposed to online. 

               Act Three, Scene one began with a polonaise and had Onegin being changed onto his good clothes for his appearance at the ball.  The setting had dining tables and large columns, plus a couch on the far right.  Gremin wore a military uniform while Tatyana wore a pink dress and a tiara.

       In my humble opinion, the most beautiful love song in all of opera is not sung by a young tenor, or young soprano, or young mezzo-soprano character, but by an old basso character who has seen so much over the years.  Bass Harold Wilson was perfect as Gremin.  At the end of the scene when Onegin sings that he is now in love with Tatyana, he immediately sits down and writes her the letter.  Then he give sit to a servant to take to Tatyana.

               The final scene in the boudoir was represented simply by curtained windows, bookshelves, a desk, and a couch.  Tatyana sat on the couch and wept after reading the letter, and Onegin saw this and threw himself at her feet.  She questions him and he protests saying he loves her.  She Admits she still loves him, but asks him to leave.  In this productions she tore his letter to shreds in front of him.  When she says her final farewell, she runs of and leaves Onegin collapsing and miserable.

On the whole, this was an awesome performance.  Russian Opera is different from other European opera but it is great.  I'd suggest this one for anyone whose new to opera, or else just a Tchaikovsky fan.