Eugen Onegin at Nationaltheater Mannheim

"Life is not a novel.”


Driven by the sobering reality of life, Tschaikovsky, uses a constellation of four young people to create a range of emotional extremes. He tells this story from three perspectives: the unrealistic Tatjana lives and loves in literary worlds until she meets Eugen Onegin who she uses as a projection surface for her feelings. In a nightly monologue she unfolds all her feelings and emotions in a letter to Onegin.
Onegin turns out to be highly cynical and unable to feel love or live in a relationship. The poet, Lensky, loves Tatjana's sister Olga passionately. With jealous fury due to Onegin’s decadent nonconformity, he accepts a duel. Lensnky is killed by Onegin, who is finally capable of expressing feelings of guilt and discovers his passion for Tatjana. However it’s too late as this love seems impossible after her marriage to Prince Gremin.

When Tchaikovsky decided to set a few scenes from Pushkin's verse novel Eugen Onegin to music in 1877, he paved the way for a totally new range of opera by his "lyrical scenes": "I do not need a czar, empresses, popular uprisings, battles, marches, in a word all that is included in the attribute grand opera. I am looking for an intimate, but strong drama based on conflicts that I myself have experienced or seen and that touch me deep inside."

Although Tschaikovsky considered this opera as "ineffectual for stage" in his times, Eugen Onegin became one of the most frequently performed repertoire works, which can be attributed to its music.