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.