PYOTR I. TCHAIKOVSKY
EUGENE ONEGIN
A LEX EI PA R IN
QUIETLY LYRICAL SCENES APPROACHES TO TCHAIKOVSKY’S UNIQUE OPERA Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin is the most popular of all Russian operas, both in Russia and around the world. There are five opera houses in Mos cow; four of them regularly include “their” Eugene Onegin in their reper toire. This intimate lyrical opera is also put on regularly at all European opera houses. What might the reasons for its particular popularity be? When we compare the paradigms of various national operas, the fol lowing picture emerges. In Germany, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte still holds the number one position on the pop ularity scale, with all the peculiarities of its libretto (we can argue for hours about where the positive and negative elements are to be found). The most important outcome of the plot is the marriage of Pamina and Tamino and the young couple coming into power. The idea of enlightenment is seen as the most important national paradigm, providing a foundation for world order. In France, naturally Bizet’s Carmen became the most important opera. It deals with the principle of freedom and personal independence for which
the principal character is prepared to pay with her life – as if the French Rev olution had built barricades and even its guillotine on the stage. In Italy, Verdi’s La traviata tops the list. The key here is the Christological idea of being willing to make a sacri fice, of relinquishing personal happi ness for the good of a “world order.” Here we see the Catholic devoutness of the country, the capital of which har bours the citadel of this religion. What can we discover in the fabric of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin? The opera was based on a “verse novel” by Pushkin published in 1833; Russian in telligentsia is in two minds about the work. Some consider it to be the fruit of a youthful “Sturm und Drang” period and that many of the important ideas in it are only addressed superficially, as it were in passing and by chance. Others, among them great minds like the poet Marina Tsvetaeva, believe that in Eugene Onegin paradigms of in terpersonal dealings in Russian society are described. They are only roughly outlined, but deeply conceived, espe cially in the behaviour of Tatyana; at
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the end of the story, she has embarked on “internal emigration”, which is characteristic of many people in Russia even today. Pushkin’s Onegin combines nu merous character deficits. The poet portrays his unexpected emotional awakening in St Petersburg as a clear sign of the reversal of fortune, as an in exorable turning point on the path to self-perfection. While composing his opera, Tchaikovsky wanted to adapt to the generally accepted behavioural norms in society and ventured to get married, although he had no entrée to the world of heterosexuality. The lan guage of his work is far removed from Pushkin’s verse novel, his heroes are more closely associated with the world of Turgenev’s novel Torrents of Spring or his play A Month in the Country; even moods like those in Dostoevsky’s White Nights can be found. In Tchaikovsky, Tatyana writes her letter to Onegin in Russian, where in Pushkin she writes it in French, as was customary at the time, “as in her na tive language she possessed not easy nor fluency.” (Chapter 3, 26) Pushkin declared that his translation into Rus sian seemed “dull and inadequate”, “like Freischütz played by the hand of a shy schoolgirl.” Weber’s opera had been premièred in 1821 and was played and sung everywhere during the years when the novel was being written. As a reminder: in this German opera Agathe has two arias. One of them, “Und ob die Wolke sie verhülle” tells of a mysterious dream full of symbolism and could have been a model for Tat yana’s letter, particularly since Tchai kovsky was well versed in European music, indeed to an extent that few other Russian composers of his day were.
In Pushkin’s novel, Lensky is more the caricature of a Romantic poet, a persiflage of the affected demeanour of versifiers in love with themselves. In Tchaikovsky, Lensky is tender and helpless, and he has the most lyrical aria in the opera, “Where, where have you gone, golden days of my spring?” Tchaikovsky’s opera bears the designation “lyrical scenes.” The com poser preferred a youthful setting, and so the world première took place at the Moscow Conservatory. Here the opera was presented by young singers who performed with great fervour and put their heart and soul into this unusual, restrained and often soft music. Tchai kovsky did not in fact want his lyrical scenes to be elaborately staged in big theatres, but when Tsar Alexander III explicitly asked to see them, he had to agree to their performance at the Mari insky Theatre and made the necessary adjustments. All interpretations of Eugene Onegin in Russian theatres (the opera is part of the season in every city in the country) set out to avoid the opulence of “grand opera” and conjure up the quiet intimacy and dreaminess of the lyrical scenes. The great theatre reformer Kon stantin Stanislavski developed a new directing model and resolved to test this method in opera as well. His first “test object” was Eugene Onegin (1922). He started rehearsing at home with very young singers, using the origi nal chamber-like version of the work. He developed an interesting piece in which the sentimental and touching melodies were not inelegantly pre sented, but the subtleties of interper sonal relationships were intelligently expressed. This production was seen
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PUSHKIN: EUGENE ONEGIN / CHAPTER 3, 31
Onegin’s eyes hung only on Tatyana, as if spellbound, no longer the little, lovelorn, shy, rural child who he had so coldly rejected. No, she was now the princess, the perfect woman, the remote, blazing star – the beautiful, imperially proud Neva. How Tanya had grown! How quickly she had found the confident pose that ruled in the salons of the great, how quickly adapted to her high status! Who would have recognised in this regal lady the shyness of the village? And once he was the focus of all her wishes, all her longing!