Program
Notes
Eugene Onegin, a poem by Alexander Pushkin, was written
between 1823 and 1831. It has remained one of the popular
stories in Russian literature. The plot deals with a young
country girl whose romantic ideals are shattered by a man
who rejects his own emotions.
The subject of Eugene Onegin was first suggested to
Tchaikovsky in 1877 by Elizaveta Andreyevna Lavrovskaya, a
friend and singer. But Tchaikovsky at first rejected the
idea. Later, after some further thought, Tchaikovsky
returned to the subject, finding it “a wealth of poetry,
human quality and simplicity.”
Perhaps Tchaikovsky came to identify too strongly with his
characters, for his personal life during this period
reflects its own tragedy. Early in 1877 he received a
desperate letter from one of his pupils—Antonia Ivanovna
Milyukova. She declared her passionate love for him. In July
1877, the composer married the girl, although he admitted
she was “a woman with whom I am not in the least in love.”
The unhappy marriage lasted only nine weeks. Work on Onegin—a
work already in progress—was halted for months while the
composer recovered from an attempted suicide and a nervous
collapse. But when he returned to work, the opera was soon
completed.
In January of 1878 Tchaikovsky wrote that he felt he would
never see his opera successfully produced on stage. “I would
prefer” he wrote, “to confine it to the Conservatoire.” As a
result, Eugene Onegin—one of his most popular operas—was
premiered in a student production at the Moscow Conservatory
on March 29, 1879.
STAGE DIRECTOR'S NOTES
By Yefim Maizel
What we love about Peter Tchaikovsky’s music is its intense
emotionality. His work takes us through a musical world
where we experience the depths of despair and the heights of
ecstasy of the characters. They are completely open to us
and are very vulnerable, and this makes their fates all the
more endearing and poignant to us.
As a romantic, Tchaikovsky saw as very tragic a gap between
aspirations, hopes, dreams and struggle for happiness of
human beings and a merciful and cruel reality, which crushes
any attempt of happiness. He personified it as a power of
Fate, a very unfriendly ruler of people’s destinies.
The Thesis of the piece is presented to us very early on, in
the musical Introduction of the opera. It sounds like a
conversation between a person and his fate, where a human
being is asking for something and the fate is rejecting all
the pleas, quietly but adamantly. This idea is reinforced
immediately at the beginning of Act I, Scene 1 with the
stark contrast between the dreams of love and happiness of
two young girls (Tatyana & Olga) and the life philosophy of
their mother and nurse, who have accepted that there is
neither love nor happiness possible for them.
The story is called “Eugene Onegin” but it is much harder to
relate to the lead character, because the characters of
Tatyana & Lensky are so much more compelling and attractive
to us (Tchaikovsky, based on his letters, pretty much
identified himself with Tatyana). But still the title is
“Onegin” not “Tatyana” or “Lensky”, and this is intriguing
and challenging. What is it that makes Onegin a protagonist
of the story and brings him on the same level with the
others in the end? The answer is: his fate. His fate is the
same as theirs in a sense of that his dream (which he
realized that he had so late in the story) is being taken
away from him.
Onegin’s soul is “aged” very early. He got disappointed in
life at a very young age and then conformed to the polished
but lacking any sign of a true emotional or spiritual life
style of the high society of Saint Petersburg. He does not
find inside himself anything to really answer to Tatyana’s
very naïve but very deep feeling for him. It takes a tragedy
and then years of soul searching for him to find again the
best part of himself. But when he is capable of
understanding an appreciation of Tatyana, it is too late.
This is the “tragic” irony of his story.
A character of young woman (Tatyana) who is fighting for her
place in life and for her personal right to marry because of
love and her own choice is well known to the American
audiences. Jane Austen characters come to mind immediately,
among others. But this is the story with the “Russian”
twist, where Tchaikovsky sees the situation as tragic, when
somebody else might have seen it as only slightly dramatic.
If in Jane Austen stories all, most of the time, ends well,
here Tatyana and everyone else of the main characters loses
in a battle with Destiny. In Tatyana’s case, she is
“tragically trapped” in a marriage with a man for whom she
feels only a sense of obligation but not love.
Lensky is a male version of Tatyana’s character. Naïve and
impulsive, he finds himself in a situation, where he falls a
victim to a severe moral “code of honor” of the society of
his time (after he childishly challenges Onegin to a duel).
Both Lensky and Onegin are “trapped” in a situation where
they must go on with the ritual, even if Lensky regrets it
now, and Onegin never wanted to fight at all. As a result,
Onegin kills the only friend he had and loved. This is the
“tragic” irony of Lensky’s death.
In this production, to express more fully and to support
visually the idea of the difference between a state of a
dream and a state of reality, we sometimes travel with the
characters outside of the very realistic environment into
more private and more abstract world of their secret
fantasies and visions. While the fantasy is lasting, it must
be beautiful.
OPERA NOTES
by Sherri Winks
Although it has long since earned a place in the mainstream
operatic repertoire, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin is far from
a traditional opera; indeed, as the composer himself takes
pains to point out on the title page, it is not an “opera”
at all, but a collection of “lyric scenes in three acts and
seven scenes.” This distinction has important ramifications
for our understanding of the work itself and of its
relationship to its source, Pushkin’s verse novel of the
same name. Critics of Tchaikovsky have bitterly condemned
his use of Pushkin’s text: while his adherence to the basis
of the plot is fairly straightforward, advocates of Pushkin
decry the loss of the narrative voice that is so essential
in the original. Tchaikovsky’s supporters argue, rather
convincingly, that this narrative voice is not lost, but
merely replaced, perhaps even strengthened, by the music
itself, by a closely-woven web of keys and motives that play
as important a role as the characters themselves.
Tchaikovsky himself never claimed to be attempting a musical
realization of the text; for him, the emotional experiences
of the characters were far more important that the plot.
One might assume from the title of the work that the role of
Onegin is the clear lead but although he is undoubtedly the
tie that binds the three acts together, it is not until Act
III that he is given the most vocally important role. Act I
centers around Tatyana’s letter scene, arguably the
emotional high point of the opera, followed by her cold
dismissal and rejection by Onegin. Act II is devoted largely
to Lensky, detailing his quarrel with Onegin over Olga, his
farewell aria, and ultimately his death, one of the only
true moments of action in the course of the work. It is only
in Act III that we finally see more deeply into Onegin’s
character, aided by motivic reminders from the previous
acts, as he is now brought to bear for his previous actions.
Once again, Tchaikovsky is more interested in portraying the
expressive moments in the lives of the characters through
“lyrical scenes,” focusing on each one in his or her time of
crisis. This preference may have led Tchaikovsky to choose
not to include a love duet between Tatyana and Onegin,
another frequently criticized feature of Eugene Onegin.
The character of Onegin is not the only unifying element of
the work – Tchaikovsky’s carefully written orchestral score
plays a role (not unlike Wagner’s) in filling in the pieces
left unspoken by the characters. Perhaps most obvious are
the peasant choruses and dances of Act I, the waltzes of the
Larin reception in the Act II, and the grand polonaise of
the St. Petersburg ball in Act III. Although none of this
music is tied specifically to a major character, it goes a
long way in establishing the social structures within which
the characters function, as well as providing the listener
with a sense of a distinctly Russian heritage – one that
both the characters and Tchaikovsky can be identified with.
The opening theme of the opera comes to be identified with
Tatyana and her turmoil throughout the first act, returning
near the end of Act III when she is again confronted by
Onegin. This motive is only one of many throughout the work
based upon or outlining a descending sixth, perhaps a
reflection of Tchaikovsky’s belief in the inevitability of
fate, in this case of a less-than-happy ending. Some of
Onegin’s first words to Tatyana in Act III are set to the
same motives as those dominating her letter scene, and her
response to his pleadings has yet another motivic connection
– her words are sung to the same melody just recently sung
by her current husband, Prince Gremin, as he described his
love for her, musically reinforcing her spoken decision.
These musical connections, both those that function as
background and those that are more character specific, are
essential to maintaining the narrative thread of the story.
Like many of Tchaikovsky’s works, Eugene Onegin has
potential biographical associations worth noting. The
character of Tatyana enchanted Tchaikovsky from the start,
and he began composing the work with the letter scene from
Act I, identifying himself more and more with the heroine
and becoming more and more disgusted with the aloof,
uncaring Onegin. During this initial period of composition,
Tchaikovsky himself received a letter from a long-forgotten
former student by the name of Antonia Milyukova, declaring
her love for him in no uncertain terms. Deeply involved in
his own writing, Tchaikovsky paid little attention to the
letter, confessing later that he had even lost it. Not until
a second letter arrived, revealing much the same depth of
feeling, did Tchaikovsky respond; in a letter written many
years later, he described his sudden identification of
himself with Onegin and of the poor Antonia with Tatyana,
berating himself for stooping to the level of such a
heartless creature. A written response was sent at once,
followed by a meeting in person that developed into an
affair and eventually into a marriage. Tchaikovsky never
claimed to have been in love with Antonia; his
correspondence indicates that he was completely devoted to
the composition of his opera, and that he desperately wanted
to avoid a reason to compare himself to Onegin.
Thus the sequence of events leading to Tchaikovsky’s
ill-fated marriage, at least as related by the composer many
years later: a deep identification with the characters of
his work, with their emotions and motivations, and a desire
to be more like one than like another. Though the marriage
was perhaps one of the lowest points of his life, Eugene
Onegin has survived to become his opera most frequently
performed outside of Russia. While we as American listeners
may lack the native Russian appreciation of the source
material, Tchaikovsky’s music allows us to identify with the
thoughts and feelings of several of the greatest literary
characters of all time.
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October
22, 23. 29, 30, 8:00 p.m.
Musical Arts Center, School of Music, Indiana
University
Enjoy the pre-concert informance
one hour before each performance
Stage Director Yefim Maizel will present his thoughts on
October 22, and 23
Musical Arts
Center Lobby |
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Curtain time for IU Opera
Theater is promptly at 8 p.m., by which time all
opera goers should be in their seats.
Latecomers
will be seated at
the discretion of the management. Thank you for
your cooperation. |
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