Program booklet »Eugene Onegin«

PYOTR I. TCHAIKOVSKY

EUGENE ONEGIN

CONTENTS

P.

4

SYNOPSIS P.

8

TCHAIKOVSKY, THE ETERNAL MODERN TOMÁŠ HANUS P.

12

WHAT’S HE UP TO TODAY? NATALYA YAKUBOVA

P.

20

HAPPINESS WAS ALMOST OURS! OSWALD PANAGL P.

30

QUIETLY LYRICAL SCENES ALEXEI PARIN P.

36

OF LEGENDS, SNOWSTORMS AND LONG BREAKS ANDREAS LÁNG P.

42

IMPRINT

PYOTR I. TCHAIKOVSKY

EUGENE ONEGIN LYRIC SCENES in three acts (seven scenes) Libretto by the composer & KONSTANTIN S. SHILOVSKY based on the novel by ALEXANDER S. PUSHKIN

ORCHESTRA

piccolo / 2 flutes 2 oboes / 2 clarinets 2 bassoons / 4 horns 2 trumpets / 3 trombones timpani / harp violin I / violin II viola / cello / double bass

AUTOGRAPH Russian National Museum of Music WORLD PREMIÈRE 29 MARCH 1879 Maly Theatre, Moscow PREMIÈRE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING 19 NOV 1897 Vienna Court Opera DURATION

3 H 15 MIN

INCL. 1 INTERMISSION

EUGENE ONEGIN

SYNOPSIS SCENE 1 MADAME LARINA , her daughters TATYANA and OLGA , the nurse FILIPPYEVNA , VLADIMIR LENSKY, EUGENE ONEGIN, neighbours, guests

The Larins’ home. Lensky, a neighbor of the Larins and Olga’s bridegroom, unexpectedly brings his friend Onegin, recently arrived from the capital, to visit them. The unknown guest cau­ ses a kerfuffle in the daily routine of the Larin household: no one hides their interest in him. Onegin doubts in the wisdom of his friend’s choice. The meeting with Onegin has made a deep impression on Tatyana.

SCENE 2 TATYANA , FILIPPYEVNA

Noticing Tatyana’s agitation, her nurse tries to distract her and calm her down. Left alone, Tatyana writes a letter to Onegin.

She sees him as her chosen one. At dawn, Tatyana asks her nurse to deliver the letter to Onegin.

SCENE 3 TATYANA , EUGENE ONEGIN

Day-time. Tatyana anxiously awaits an answer to her declara­ tion of love. Onegin arrives. He is touched by Tatyana’s sincer­ ity, but cannot reciprocate her feelings.

SCENE 4 MADAME LARINA , TATYANA , OLGA , VLADIMIR LENSKY, EUGENE ONEGIN, FILIPPYEVNA , ZARETSKY neighbours, guests

Tatyana’s name day. Lensky has persuaded Onegin to pay an­other visit to the ­Larins. But he is irritated by everything. Deciding to punish Lensky for bringing him, he demonstratively flirts with Olga. Olga’s prompt response to Onegin’s a ­ dvances, a ­ fflicts Lensky. He picks a quarrel with Onegin and challenges him to a duel.

Previous pages: ANDRÈ SCHUEN as EUGENE ONEGIN NICOLE CAR as TATYANA

4

SYNOPSIS

SCENE 5 VLADIMIR LENSKY, EUGENE ONEGIN, ZARETSKY, OLGA , MADAME LARINA , FILIPPYEVNA , GUILLOT neighbours, guests

Morning. Lensky awaits Onegin. He thinks with pain and an­ guish about his life. Onegin, who arrives late, is reluctant to take the conflict to its conclusion. Both men feel privately that they have acted rashly. But it is too late, there is no going back.

A shot is fired, Lensky is fatally wounded.

————

SCENE 6 EUGENE ONEGIN, TATYANA , PRINCE GREMIN guests

Several years later. After a long absence, Onegin has returned to life in the capital and meets Tatyana. She is married and social life in the capital now revolves around her. Onegin is shocked at his refusal. The transformation in Tatyana and the fact she is now out of reach arouse mad passion in Onegin.

SCENE 7 TATYANA , EUGENE ONEGIN

Onegin manages to obtain a meeting with Tatyana. His words ring with repentance and regret. Demanding that his passion be reciprocated, he extorts from Tatyana the admission that she still loves him. But her decision to stay with her husband is final. Onegin is distraught.

Next page: HELENE SCHNEIDERMAN as LARINA ASMIK GRIGORIAN as TATYANA

PUSHKIN: EUGENE ONEGIN / CHAPTER 2, 24 & 25

Her name was Tatyana… as such, I am the first who dared unshrinkingly to give you this bourgeois name even in a novel.

Why not? It sounds poetic, although, as I know, it sounds very trivial to delicate and aesthetically trained ears.

In short, her name was Tatyana.

She was not endowed with her sister’s freshly glowing cheeks, beauty, and vivacity.

Melancholy, taciturn, serious, and private, as shy as a doe in the silence of the forest, she seemed within the family to be a sport, a misgrafted slip. She did not know how to hang tenderly on her parents.

As a child, she even avoided joining in the crowd of her playmates, preferring to sit alone at the window, to be by herself.

TOMÁŠ HANUS

TCHAIKOVSKY, THE ETERNAL MODERN Naturally, we could analyse. We could investigate and break the work down into its smallest pieces. Study it, and try to explain on the basis of count­ less individual aspects (for example: ambience, form, harmony, melody, phrasing) what is “Russian” in Eugene Onegin. Is there something there at all?

And if so, what? And to what extent?

Probably, at the end of all this we’d have a complex and fascinating result.

But what would it tell us? Would we really know any more?

I personally believe that one in­ dividual aspect or another ultimately has little to contribute to a really fun­ damental statement about a work like Eugene Onegin or Tchaikovsky himself.

What always fascinates me every time is the fact that the composer’s genius enables him to simply brush aside such questions, and create works like Eugene Onegin – originals which transcend borders. These can be national or in­ terpretative, and even temporal. It’s fascinating how modern this opera is, how it directly speaks to us today in the 21st century. Tatyana, Onegin, Olga, Lensky – none of them are remote historical characters, their questions about life are our questions. Eugene

Onegin isn’t an icon with beautiful melodies which we all know and eagerly dive into. This opera has its own life, is always relevant, demanding that we understand it and approach it from the present.

And this brings us to a paradox.

Although Eugene Onegin is directly modern, the opera still has a historical level. This needs to be respected, but there are some tricky aspects to this.

This is because the important tradition as handed down can quickly become a misunderstood matter of routine which we follow unthinkingly out of conve­ nience. This attitude is reflected in the ominous “we…” in a comfortable bar­ rier against a curious and inquisitive spirit. We all know the dilatory “we…” that always appears with differences about interpretation and discussions.

“We’ve always done it this way,” or “This is how we do it here.”

And nobody knows just who this “we” is. Certainly, there are traditions associated with performances, but they aren’t there for us to relax, they have to be questioned and repeatedly reexamined. And this brings me back to the personality of the composer as reflected in the work. The real task

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TCHAIKOVSKY, THE ETERNAL MODERN

of the performers is to bring this out, aside from all tradition. Naturally, I’m talking here about the extended expres­ sion of his artistic personality, rather than the strictly human side. To under­ stand this, a musician is well advised to take a broader view and look at works to be interpreted in the overall context of Tchaikovsky’s œuvre.

One example: without plagiarizing himself, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Sym­ phony, which was created close in time to Eugene Onegin has strong connec­ tions to the opera, in the sense that both works portray an inner and exte­ rior world and circumstances that the composer was living in at the time. If you listen to them, you can feel what was driving Tchaikovsky emotionally, they express his mental and physical reality. For example, the intimacy of the slow movement of the Fourth Sym­ phony shows a world of melody which reflects Tatyana’s situation very well and comments on it – and at the same time relates to Tchaikovsky’s loneli­ ness. Generally, the Fourth Symphony as a whole should be seen as a rejection of simple triumph. And isn’t this what Tchaikovsky is also telling us in Eugene Onegin?

The question of how to deal with tradition also involves the question of the language. In Vienna, as previous­ ly in Hamburg, Gustav Mahler vigor­ ously promoted Eugene Onegin, and premièred the opera there – naturally in German, as was common practice at the time. And this actually continued at Wiener Staatsoper until 1988, when Eugene Onegin was performed for the first time in the original language – Russian. This is not unusual, Eugene Onegin is still performed in many houses in the local language.

However, as Tchaikovsky – conscious­ ly and unconsciously – drew on the dialect of the original libretto and the Russian language generally, the musi­ cal and textual idiom are closely related.

The language accordingly dictates the melody, tonal colour, phrasing and micro­ dynamic. To this extent, you cannot simply separate the opera from its original language and transfer it to what is foreign territory without losing its internal consistency.

If I had to come up with a keyword for Eugene Onegin it would be intimacy.

It’s not surprising that Tchaikovsky chose to describe the piece as “lyrical scenes” and not an “opera”, showing us how to read this work – cautiously, sensitively, and precisely. Eugene One­ gin was given its world première in a small theatre rather than a great opera house, with students of the Moscow Conservatory.

It was not a matter of the size of the venue, but the nuanced, finely grained expression. We can work with a larger ensemble in a large house if we manage to create an intimate mood. This means avoiding broad gestures in favour of detailed characterisation, atmosphere and internal developments.

Tchaikovsky leaves us a lot of scope as interpreters, being very economical in dynamic markings in the score, in contrast to other composers, for exam­ ple Giacomo Puccini or Richard Strauss – which I see as characteristic of many Slavic composers. While Strauss (to continue with this example) gives numerous instructions within any given 30 bars, Tchaikovsky often gives only one in a 30-bar passage. This doesn’t mean that within these 30 bars there is no change in volume, mood or tempo, but that the interpreter in ques­

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TCHAIKOVSKY, THE ETERNAL MODERN

tion has to act autonomously, although naturally in line with the composer’s intentions.

It also means that the performer must immerse themselves in the men­ tal world of the work and its authors in order to discover its nuances and how

they must interpret it. In the course of this, several different approaches will appear, several of them perfectly via­ ble. Making a decision here requires not only experience, but also a great deal of empathy – as well as sponta­ neous creativity!

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BOGDAN VOLKOV as LENSKY ANDRÈ SCHUEN as EUGENE ONEGIN

N ATA LYA YA K U B OVA

WHAT’S

HE UP TO TODAY? NATALYA YAKUBOVA ON THE MOSCOW PREMIÈRE OF DMITRI TCHERNIAKOV’S EUGENE ONEGIN. IS HE THE SAME? OR GROWN WISER? WHAT IS HIS LATEST CHARACTER, WHAT DOES HE PLAY AT TODAY? Probably, any opera lover heading for the Eugene Onegin new production at the Bolshoi Theatre in September 2006 wondered this, or something like it.

Although Dmitri Tcherniakov at 35 had already won numerous awards and an impressive reputation, a new production of this work at this house was a trial by fire for any director.

Tcher­niakov could be expected to de­ liver more than just an interesting per­ formance – a staging which amounted to a reinterpretation.

Will he put the opera in a new con­ text which has nothing in common with the canonical Bolshoi produc­ tion? Or will he come up with an iron­ ic-nostalgic twist on tradition? Tcher­ niakov could be relied on for both.

What he actually showed us was sig­ nificantly more complex than either of the two options. There was an original stage, but this was both similar to and

different from the canon. There was – and was not – an ironic-nostalgic twist.

Almost the entire action took place on a single set. A large dining room in muted beige with high windows in the first part, changing in the second part to a windowless room in imperial purple and blinding white. This means there was no garden where old Larina could make jam, no alley where Onegin could give Tatyana his letter explain­ ing that marriage to him would be doomed, no snow where Lensky “with shoulder-length locks” could fall. Not even Tatyana’s small, stuffy room where she writes the letter, not the “own four walls” of her St Petersburg house, the sanctuary which strength­ ened the constancy of Princess Gremin – “I am given to another, and I will be true to him forever!”

No twirling couples at the festival at the Larin household, no sophisticated St Petersburg ball. What there is, is a long table stretching almost the width of the set, slightly angled, which gives the setting its structure. This minimal­ ism forces the audience to anticipate virtuoso tricks from the director. (Surely

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WHAT’S HE UP TO TODAY?

the table won’t be there in the next scene? And if it is, what’s he going to do with it?) But the director avoids all these expectations. Paradoxically, the whole atmosphere is one of an aristo­ cratic country estate (with suggestions of the widely varied “generals’ dachas” of the following epochs) and later the masquerade atmosphere, “the bril­ liance, the noise, the intoxication” re­ quired for the St Petersburg finale.

If we can assume that there are social circles today which follow the example of the Russian landed aris­ tocracy, then Eugene Onegin can take place today, in the “here and now.” We are invited to consider the opera as be­ longing not to a remote, ended, bygone time where people could be outraged that a young woman (!) should declare her love (!) in a letter (!) to a young man (!), who instead of abusing her trust recommends her “to learn to control herself.” This world is governed by the same passions all too familiar to us as our world.

The Larin sisters sing their open­ ing song “Have you heard?” not – as the music literature assumes – from the need to blend with Russian nature, but because their mother is determined to shine with them before the guests.

The mother does not agree with their “You sing – I sang once too” to naive­ ly mourn the passing of her youth, but because she can’t hear the pleasantly reassuring, “You were young then!” often enough. There are no peasants, simplicity here is a fashionable atti­ tude. The folk song “My hurrying feet hurt” is carried here by the comfort­ able, well-fed crowd of guests around the table.

If there is modernisation, it is only to the point that we are blocked from

perceiving Onegin in dignified inno­ cence as “a legend from the depths of the past”, as this Onegin is naturally a contemporary of Tcherniakov. But as far as Pushkin – and a fortiori Tchai­ kovsky’s contemporaries – is concerned, the sarcasm poured here on the various forms taken by the emotion over the patriarchal Russian culture is not an anachronism. All the elements of the staging – the traditional and the con­ temporary – serve to make what is in and happening to this young woman understandable and transparent.

To describe what the staging by the Postmodernist Tcherniakov actu­ ally reveals, we need to go to the level of how the characters are presented.

Tatyana sits at one end of the long dining table, Onegin at the other. He has barely entered the room and has already sat down, without being aware that he is creating a spatial metaphor for the increasing remoteness in mar­ ried life that he is about to warn Tatyana of, joined at the family table where they both preside, but with an endless distance between them.

Eyes fixed on his plate, he lectures her on the married state and “Hyme­ naeus”... God, that wasn’t what she wrote to him about! That wasn’t the object of her barely faded cry for “dark happiness”! He attributes some “per­ fections” to her. She didn’t offer him any “perfections”, she offered her “mad passion.” But she gets no reply to this from Onegin, it stays ignored as something unseemly. The “magical poison of desire” will from now on eat away at Tatyana from within.

In following this scene, where One­ gin unconsciously confirms the accu­ racy of his prophecy – there he is, the irritated husband, rhapsodizing about

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N ATA LYA YA K U B OVA

his high vocation, from which his wife naturally only keeps him – it’s tempt­ ing to repeat, “Yes, it’s true! That’s ex­ actly how it is!” As if everything is in the right place for the first time, his cal­ culated musical phrases, his so-called “noble restraint”, the detachment of the dandy. And at the same time, the endless emptiness.

But I have to interrupt here. Is this actually still Tchaikovsky’s music? In Tcherniakov’s performance, the tra­ ditional musical interpretation is not just a feature he is forced to respond to.

We don’t just hear Tchaikovsky’s mu­ sic, we hear Tchaikovsky’s music as it is interpreted at the Bolshoi, we hear a reference value of the national culture.

And this reference deserves to be used to analyse the countless illusions and self-deceptions of our culture.

Personally, I believed in a different Onegin, a romantic, dashing, “true” and not parodistic Childe Harold. I be­ lieved, and I still believe today, that “I am not made for perfection” can be de­ moniacally sung, which changes On­ egin’s sermon into a confession which opens up a horizon of existential re­ jection. And which naturally makes Onegin the key figure in the opera.

Tcherniakov returns to the original version of the “lyric scenes”, which Tchaikovsky would actually have rath­ er called Tatyana Larina.

Here, Olga sings her “I wasn’t made for melancholy moping” with a grow­ ing inner rage, as if she wants to show her sister that she could also play a ro­ mantic heroine but prefers not to lose her self-control. At the end she is still close to tears and has to hide her face in her hands. Here, Lensky’s poetic words are not listened to reverently, but at best with mocking condescen­

sion. Turning away from his urging, Olga mutely begs the guests sitting at the table to excuse his eccentricity, which they do with an understanding smile.

Tcherniakov joins in the polemic of interpretations seeking to decipher the hero either through recourse to the novel or its unrestrained romanticisa­ tion. Tcherniakov’s countless ironic asides are very close to Pushkin, but even so all his characters are different from those in the novel. Lensky – who incidentally was Tchaikovsky’s second candidate after Tatyana for the key fig­ ure of his “lyric scenes” – was described ironically by Pushkin. In the produc­ tion, the mockery he is subject to is critical of the satiated, self-satisfied so­ ciety rather than Lensky himself.

And there is no explanation how such a direct and honest Lensky could end up in such company. Lensky tries to become a Russian poet. He believes that if he writes poetry he will be able to move in such civilised circles. But the “civilised circles” tired of poems long ago. Possibly as dessert, if there’s ice cream and you can dab your lips with a napkin.

The performers become incarna­ tions of satiation and self-satisfaction.

At the start of the ball at the Larins, one of the sated guests is placed on the proscenium with his back to the audi­ torium and his hands behind the chair­ back. He stays seated in this insane position. This posture – belly proudly thrust forward, hands back (which makes the belly easier to control) – dic­ tates the movements of the other, com­ paratively sober guests – bursting with good humour, self-satisfied and look­ ing for any excuse to burst into snort­ ing (but very musically set) laughter.

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WHAT’S HE UP TO TODAY?

Lensky wants to play jealous.

Laughter. Lensky has borrowed Tri­ quet’s couplets, clearly he wants to show us that we’re making a fool of him. Laughter. Lensky has challenged Onegin to a duel. Laughter. The young man has behaved inappropriately. No hard feelings. A callow youth becom­ ing enraged. Let’s wait and see what happens next.

Onegin proves to be cut from the same cloth as this guffawing crowd.

This is what inspires him to goad the presumptuous youth, seeking signs of their approval. Incidentally, his in­ ner membership of this society – far stronger than his need to stand apart – was evident in the first scene, however hard he tries to pose as an outsider and maverick with his out-of-place black satin coat.

When he overcomes his unsociabil­ ity and finally sits down, he volunteers “my uncle, a model of worthiness” as a sort of token of membership of this world of loose and shallow chatter about uncles and aunts that passes the time until the meal.

How could Tatyana fall in love with such an Onegin? Well, “the soul waits… for someone.” The answer is given long before his entrance, as the director has turned the prelude into a mute scene where Tatyana moves away from the diners and leaves through the French windows, searching. This turns the prelude from a simple sum­ mary of the opera with its reference to the love letter into the motif of Tatya­ na’s desire, which precedes the action, long before the future recipient of the love letter has taken shape.

This answer is confirmed at the end of the Larins’ ball, when Tatyana, who has followed the events of the scene in

a detached daze, suddenly goes to Len­ sky, who is holding a pistol, and inter­ rupts his farewells, but instead of dis­ arming him, gently strokes his cheek.

He is another person eaten away by the same poison of desire. He was so close to me.

“But happiness was almost ours, so close! …” Paradoxically, these words at the end of the opera are for Onegin, not Lensky. Or is it is a question of loss generally for them, of something that has passed by, is waved after? Like the old woman who stands by Len­ sky while he sings “But perhaps I am passing into the realm of shades.” But young man! It’s too early for you to be thinking of such things. Only to un­ derstand later and be shaken by sup­ pressed sobs.

This individual recognition of the impending loss is a counterpoint to the whole duel scene. The main subject continues the theme of the ball scene.

The duel degenerates into a mockery of Lensky. Nobody takes the duel seri­ ously, no one prepares for it. The scene shows a tedious morning disorder.

During Lensky’s farewell to life, Olga goes through the whole room, looks for a lost earring, finds it and sweeps out, delighted, while Lensky sings “Come to me, I am your betrothed!”

The table isn’t cleared before the end, and even if we’re suspecting that the well-laid table will become a bier, we still don’t know how a corpse will be laid on it.

The duel scene is the most unex­ pected, bold and perhaps relevant moment of the entire production. Len­ sky’s death is not the result of a code of honour which has become incom­ prehensible to us, but the result of the thoughtlessness of the people around

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N ATA LYA YA K U B OVA

Lensky who try to the last minute to tell him what to do. Lensky shoots himself, but this makes Onegin’s guilt greater than if he had caused his death in a classic duel. His guilt lies in the fact that to encourage the onlookers he has contemptuously dropped the pis­ tol offered to him, along with a dozen more mocking gestures at the expense of the man trying to show us that there are still conflicts in our era that have to be taken seriously.

Lensky dies in a scuffle where no­ body can believe right to the end that it will end in a tragedy. He dies and ac­ tually falls “where the well-laid table stood.” In hindsight it becomes clear that everything had been foretold. Not only happiness but also misery “was so near, so possible.”

I admit that by this point, the story is over. The last two scenes, very log­ ically and perceptively performed within the overall interpretation, add nothing, even if they tie up a lot of loose ends. To add something, Len­ sky would have had to leave a mark on Onegin. Another critic of the produc­ tion believes that this was the case – I’m not convinced. Instead, I noticed a lot of smaller and greater barbs the director used to settle with his hero.

When Onegin enters the splendid banqueting room, nobody recognises him. No servant appears to take his coat, show him to his seat and hold his chair. The newly-returned Childe Har­ old has to do all this himself. And the eagerness with which Onegin tries to gain acceptance into the festive circle, embracing his prominent host, does him no honour.

The whole explanation of why he felt “a need to move on” is an attempt to justify his lack of local recognition

and his blatant desire to be seen as a celebrity. He has little to show. Perhaps it matters that he “killed his friend in a duel.” The famous seducer, the fa­ mous duellist, the famous traveller.

The guests don’t wait for the end of his toast before scattering, without pro­ test, without any reaction to his ver­ bose speech. They’re simply bored.

Perhaps people here really don’t know Onegin at first. As soon as they do, they forget again. Just as Gremin conceals from Onegin the fact that he is aware of his and Tatyana’s history.

But at the latest when she clutches at his shoulder, sobbing, with the words “Onegin again!”, it is clear that he knows everything. He saves her from her confusion as if he knew nothing.

With a brief sigh he composes himself to sing his aria as if it was a delicate diplomatic mission.

He takes Onegin’s hand only brief­ ly – I know you, my friend, but leave Tatyana alone! He sings “People of every age feel love” like a hymn, an official version of Tatyana’s marriage.

And perhaps everybody knows that it wasn’t Tatyana who gave Gremin new life, but that Gremin had to give Tatya­ na a new life (which is also beautiful), and that you had to believe it anyway.

Meanwhile, the sophisticated and splendid Tatyana sits at the opposite end of the table, accepting the praise addressed to her with gently smiling grace. Gremin’s confidential, intimate confession to a friend becomes public confirmation of Tatyana’s status as the wife of a high-ranking officer, and at the same time this status is generally accepted, including by Tatyana.

The ability to find the right words to pay the necessary tribute is impres­ sive. Complete command of the forms

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WHAT’S HE UP TO TODAY?

of polite society. Everything is perfect.

Up to the walls people have gathered in, which recall Tatyana’s perennial “raspberry bonnet.” As if the staging set out to refute Onegin’s comfortless prophesy of a married couple unable to communicate across the table, the Gremins are united, even though they are separated by the width of the ban­ queting hall and the VIPs packing it.

Is it the emotional closeness which gives them the social well-being and self-confidence?

The production offers no answer here. Tatyana has managed to escape from her misery, but how and at what price is beyond this staging, and indeed beyond Tchaikovsky’s opera and Push­ kin’s novel. In the finale, Tcherniakov shows not only “the earlier Tatyana” but also the rejected Tatyana, broken and shaken by hysterical fits. What she

has hidden behind the façade of a hap­ py marriage (and is still hiding), Tatya­ na’s fanatical devotion to her husband (“And I shall remain true to him forev­ er”), is the tie between the patient and the doctor, the needy to their caregiver.

You can interpret her story psychoana­ lytically – the repressed desire leads to a neurosis, therapy must be followed by a confrontation with reality, which eventually happens in the finale.

She is on her own here. This is why Gremin hides himself behind a con­ cealed door in the splendid room to follow Onegin’s ridiculous claims (“I am your protector to the grave”).

Onegin draws a pistol and threat­ ens to kill himself. Everything be­ comes even more ridiculous. The mu­ sic is interrupted by two shots, before his last riposte Onegin’s pistol has mis­ fired twice.

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Next pages: NICOLE CAR as TATYANA

O S WA L D PA N AG L

HAPPINESS WAS ALMOST OURS! EUGENE ONEGIN OR THE SEARCH FOR

THE LOST MEANING OF LIFE A man has just tried to win over a woman who has meanwhile become the wife of another man. He’s begged her passionately, recalled memories, offered visions of their future. She should abandon her secure but ulti­ mately unfulfilled life, her position in society and follow him, then they can both be happy. But the woman resists his urging, the persuasiveness of his words and the magic of his personali­ ty, the signs of superiority and the ges­ tures of submission.

Admittedly, she still loves him as she did years ago as a young girl when he unexpectedly appeared in her life – why should she deny it? But you can’t turn back the clock and cheat time (which is not only “a strange thing” in Hofmannsthal’s Rosenkavalier!), what’s done cannot be undone. With the words “Farewell forever!” Tatyana leaves Eugene Onegin, her partner in this confrontation, alone on the stage – or more accurately, the reception

room of her palace. In despair, he cries out, “Disgrace! Melancholy! Oh pity my fate!” and rushes off.

This is how the most unusual “love duet” in all opera ends, and this is also how an opera ends which for over a century has had as many silent admir­ ers as strident critics, which still has not found a secure place in the ratings of music drama in the clash of approval and rejection.

All the things about this idiosyn­ cratic piece that have been praised – the loving depiction of the characters, particularly Tatyana and the young poet Lensky, the subtle presentation of nature, in harmony and in conflict with human sensitivities. Think of the sunrise and the shepherd’s song at the end of Tatyana’s letter scene, of the realism of the peasant world in the chorus and dance in the first scene (free from all excessive sentimentali­ ty), in the glitter of the contrasting ball scenes (waltzes and mazurkas at the

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H A P P I N E S S WA S A L M O S T O U R S !

Larins’ country estate in scene 3, pol­ onaises in Prince Gremin’s palace in St Petersburg in scene 6).

And then there are all the places which the “Beckmessers” have criti­ cised, the lack of operatic character in the draft, the arbitrary and acciden­ tal nature of the plot, which allegedly fails to arouse serious interest in the audience and limits involvement, in the formal weaknesses of the allegedly loosely connected seven scenes. And also – and specifically – because of the undramatic, abrupt, and open con­ clusion, which is where we began our analysis.

A hero who is neither saved nor dies (although these are not mutually exclusive, as we know), a final tableau without a wedding scene or a descent into hell, a man who simply runs away, leaving an empty stage, without tell­ ing us where he’s going – suicide, the next adventure, a dull everyday life or the threshold of a new active life. An end or a new beginning? A break, or a continuum? No exclamation mark, but a series of question marks, which com­ pose the closing chord.

No moralizing raising of the libret­ tist’s index finger, but a resigned shrug.

What an unprecedented affront to an audience whose ticket entitled them to a clean, unambiguous solution!

There are weighty, carefully con­ sidered, historically and aesthetically impeccable arguments against all the accusations. The absence of exterior splendour in the piece, the composi­ tion bypassing the traditional norms of opera as a genre is deliberate, repeat­ edly justified by the composer, and is appropriately and descriptively ex­ pressed in the alternative title of “lyric scenes.”

The second criticism can be refuted

by Tchaikovsky’s aesthetic categories, disarmed by his artistic conscience. He preferred internal tension to pompous external conflict, he felt more at home in the familiar ambience of his Rus­ sian homeland than in exotic distant settings, and the human emotional landscape seemed rifer in conflict than any battlefield. This is why he was so enthusiastic about Bizet’s Carmen and just as ardently took exception to Ver­ di’s Aïda.

“So what are effects! If you find them in some Aïda, for example, I can tell you that I couldn’t for anything in the world write an opera with such a plot, because I need people and not dolls […]. I don’t understand the feel­ ings of an Egyptian princess or a Phar­ aoh […].” (Letter of 2 January, 1878) The claim of lack of form in the libretto and score is mere prejudice which does not stand up to closer ex­ amination. I hope to be able to explain the clear proportions and dramaturgic principles of construction of the work in more detail elsewhere. Here, I will have to be satisfied (including antici­ pating further arguments) with a few passing comments about formal com­ pliance and unmistakable structures.

The preference for the three-part form is broadly shown in the three scenes in the first act and continues in the inter­ nal breakdown of individual scenes.

In Tatyana’s great letter scene, sym­ metrically framed by the discussions with her nurse (scene 2) and also in her first encounter with Onegin, whose “sermonizing” aria in which he polite­ ly rejects Tatyana’s written declaration of love, is fenced off by a chorus of girls gathering berries (scene 3). The fact that they sing in their saucy song about

21

O S WA L D PA N AG L

love affairs where the young man is the doing the begging, while on stage the man is backing away is another unusu­ al element.

The dramaturgical role of the let­ ter as a parallel between the first and third acts should also be noted. Here as there, it leads to a meeting between the two key figures, although this does not bring them together but ends in each case with refusal and resignation. The sequence of action is reversed. Tatya­ na’s forwardness and Onegin’s rejec­ tion in the first act is exactly reversed at the end of the opera. Then, Onegin takes the initiative, and Tatyana fails to fall in with it (admittedly for other reasons).

The fact that we see Tatyana writ­ ing her letter and share in its birth pains, while we only learn of Onegin’s message from Tatyana’s lips shortens the final act, creates variety and avoids dull repetition in the plot.

But what are we to make of the re­ markably ambivalent ending, which leaves us in confusion and seems to be a no-man’s-land between a happy end­ ing and Aristotelian catharsis? Who is this Onegin, who now ardently de­ sires the very woman he once spurned and pursues her with protestations of love? Are we to take the turnaround in his emotions seriously, or is this just a passing moment, a neurotic manoeu­ vre? And if we are to trust his new emotions, what precipitated them?

The scale of interpretations of Tchaik­ ovsky’s (and Pushkin’s) hero ranges be­ tween the extremes of a Russian Flying Dutchman and The Dandy’s Progress.

It lurches uneasily between possession craving salvation, and emotional insta­ bility, between fate and mood, seeking and craving.

The external action does not offer the interpreter any security. With his urbane candour, confidence in think­ ing and appearance, the young lord of the manor Onegin has shown the dreamy Tatyana a way out of the op­ pressive limitations of her rural sur­ roundings. Tatyana acknowledges her strong feelings in defiance of her up­ bringing and conventions.

But the impulse falls flat, Onegin pulls back, leaving no opening for the young woman trying to flee with him.

He goes even further, moving from dis­ illusioned honesty to cynicism. At Tat­ yana’s name day celebrations, irrita­ tion and boredom drives him to dance with her sister Olga, turning disap­ pointment into tragedy. His friend and neighbour, the poet Lensky, is Olga’s jealous betrothed, mistakes Onegin’s intentions and in a fit of excessive sen­ sibility challenges him to a duel.

Although they both feel the absurd­ ity of their situation and cling internal­ ly to the deep-seated familiarity, this mood of reconciliation cannot pierce the armour of social rules. The duel takes place, and Lensky falls. Years of aimless travel in flight from what has happened, his awareness of subjective guilt, of himself, have not brought On­ egin peace of mind or a new meaning to life.

Barely returned, he plunges into the intoxication of a ball, where he unexpectedly sees Tatyana, now the wife of a general and war hero, Prince Gremin. When they recognise each other, she quickly withdraws. How­ ever, violent emotions flare up in On­ egin, he arranges a meeting, which we have described earlier.

Is Onegin’s sudden love credible, his new emotional situation lasting?

22

H A P P I N E S S WA S A L M O S T O U R S !

Pushkin gives no clear answer in his verse novel – he stresses the turnabout without guaranteeing its durability.

What Tchaikovsky as a librettist (to­ gether with his friend and student Kon­ stantin S. Shilovsky) leaves hanging, he decides conclusively as a composer.

When he has Onegin sing his brief ari­ oso after seeing Tatyana again (“Woe is me, there’s no doubt this is love […], full of youthful passion”), it has a text still open to personal interpretation, but is set to the opening melody of Tatyana’s letter monologue (scene 2), which is a clear artistic statement.

An attempt to see in this clear mu­ sical parallel only Onegin’s inability to experience personal emotion, forcing him to echo it, would be sophistry and easily refuted. Tchaikovsky was too significant a symphonic composer to miss the semantics of a reprise. And the honesty of Tatyana’s emotional world is beyond all doubt.

So what caused this shift in On­ egin? Is it the brilliance now surround­ ing Tatyana, her high social rank, as she herself accuses Onegin? Is it her inaccessibility which drives his de­ sires? Tchaikovsky has answered this question indirectly, if you read the li­ bretto closely and consider how the music evolved. The shift takes place in the middle of Gremin’s aria, which is elevated far beyond the status of a showpiece bass number to a dramatic turning point. As the only major solo, there is no real equivalent or model in Pushkin’s text for this episode where the prince praises his fortune in being married to Tatyana.

The original has a few words with which he takes Onegin to Tatyana, the simple fact of marriage, no revelation of emotions. The text of the aria in

Tchaikovsky is very different. “Onegin, I won’t hide from you the fact that my love for Tatyana is unbounded! My life was lonely […]. She came and like a ray of sunshine in bad weather she gave me life and youth, yes, youth and happiness […]. In the midst of cold ac­ cusations, hard-hearted business deal­ ings, dreary emptiness, considerations, thoughts and conversations she shines like a star in a clear night sky […].”

In his production of Eugene Onegin (Hamburg State Opera 1979, Berlin Komische Oper Berlin 1988) director Adolf Dresen made the contrast be­ tween the empty, dishonest society at the ball and Tatyana’s merits as praised in the aria a visual one. Onegin’s sudden change of mood, abruptly recognising the opportunity he missed in life after this presentation, becomes convincing­ ly obvious. It is no accident that Tchaik­ ovsky, who was initially lacking a plau­ sible dramatic transition in Onegin’s behaviour, composed Gremin’s aria as a comparatively late addition.

Is Tatyana’s inner life fulfilled, and why does she reject Onegin, since she loves him? Interpreters of Pushkin’s original in the 19th century, such as Belinsky and Dostoevsky, tried to an­ swer the second question, and it is still as pertinent today. Is her dominant feeling one of duty? Does she not trust Onegin’s inconstant character? Is she unable to overcome her earlier humil­ iation? Marxist literary critics have offered Onegin’s indissoluble embed­ ding in his social class as the ultimate reason for his inner conflict and with it Tatyana’s decision.

Historians have pointed to the steadfast wives of wounded veterans, of Decembrist wives who followed their husbands into exile, as a histori­

23

O S WA L D PA N AG L

cal example of a literary model. But are these attempted explanations, sepa­ rately or together, not lacking, are they not too clumsy and superficial? Can a subtle personality like Tatyana be re­ duced to a type? And what place in the class struggle is there for her rich and differentiated emotional world?

Leonore Scheffler comes much clos­ er to a solution when she talks of the fateful element in the love life and the transgression this love would mean.

Tatyana and Onegin are presented an ideal couple, their key features aligned with each other. So they turn to each other, although out of phase and at dif­ ferent time. When she turns to him, he rejects her, declining a tie which he is not ready for – “Happiness was almost ours!” When he perceives her as his congenial partner, she is no longer free – “You can’t bring back the past!” It is not enough to be destined for one an­ other if the right moment (the Greeks had a word for it – kairos) is missed.

The similar question raised about Tatyana’s happiness in her marriage is again answered more clearly by the musical form than the straight text.

Leaving aside her confession of undi­ minished love for Onegin, her declara­ tions permit various conclusions.

But if we apply the principle of for­ mal correspondence to the relation­ ship between the start and finish of the opera (ring composition), then Tatya­ na’s life repeats her mother’s skill. In the duet in the first scene, the nurse told Larina “you dreamed of another, much more to your taste in heart and mind!” and in what follows they re­ peat several times. “Routine is given to us from above, in place of happiness.”

The subsequent peasant chorus ob­ serves relevantly:

“My eager heart hurts from so much grief, I don’t know what to do, how can I forget my sweetheart.”

In all the wealth of analytical litera­ ture and commentary on Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin I’ve been lastingly impressed by the statements of two prominent directors in explaining their concept. Adolf Dresen writes in the programme to his Berlin production, “But Onegin must recognise that such freedom is empty, that he has rejected life along with Tatyana, that there is no happiness if you cling to sorrow, if you shut yourself off, avoid risk, that you have to put your armour aside even if every blow is wounding.”

And Götz Friedrich concludes his essay on his work as a director in Zurich (1976) with a comment on the opera’s curious ending: “This open ending is not the least feature which will secure this work a lasting if silent human effect beyond the historical period of its creation.

Eugene Onegin raises questions which cannot be confidently answered and solved, leaving the story open. Open for further insights and behaviours.

This includes – as Tchaikovsky com­ posed it – the readiness to experience truth in the suspended tension be­ tween pain and beauty.”

In the collection “Leporello fällt aus der Rollen” (“Leporello breaks character”) edited by Peter Härtling, prominent modern authors continue the stories of characters in world liter­ ature, sometimes taking bizarre turns.

Not baulking at paradoxes. That Eu­ gene Onegin is absent here seems less an accident than an aesthetic necessi­ ty. For Pushkin the closing sentence “You are fortunate if you don’t read the novel of life to the end and could sud­

24

H A P P I N E S S WA S A L M O S T O U R S !

denly leave it, as I did with my Onegin” was not random flattery but a literary programme.

We know that in an early plan Tchaikovsky intended to end Eugene Onegin with suicide – a concession to the expectation of a definitely tragic fi­

nale. We can be grateful that he finally chose a less dramatic and all the more human end, which liberates the audi­ ence’s imagination rather than shack­ ling it. Once the curtain has fallen, everyone is free to imagine their own ending.

25

PUSHKIN: EUGENE ONEGIN / CHAPTER 3, 31

Here I lay down my little treasure, Tatyana’s sweet, bold letter.

I read it often – and it repeatedly moves me so deeply.

Who taught her the sweet words, so free and yet so well arranged, the simple force of this language, this heartfelt passion, so bold, so touchingly exuberant?

“I make so bold as to write to you – is more required? Now it will be clear – what remains for me? – disdain will be my punishment!

But if, where anxiety and fear drive me, there is a glimmer of sympathy for me – then do not cast me off!

I wanted at first to keep silent, would never have revealed to a strict eye what now turns to disgrace and shame.

May I keep a little gleam of hope to see you in our remote area from to time,

to welcome you there, to secretly look forward to your clever words, to dream happily by myself of seeing you again…

But they say your pride cannot bear to enter humble dwellings.

And we – are small, low, simple, grateful to honour a guest.

Why did you come to the land where we were so silently hidden?

I would never have known you and never suffered such heartfelt pain.

I would have become wiser with the years and perhaps sought something else, and bound to another found a quiet happiness with him, and lived as a pious mother.

Another... no!

My heart cannot be vowed to anyone else on earth!

This is how the Creator made me, this is the will of Heaven: I am yours.

My life was a single stake to win you, God Himself gave you to me, you are my refuge to the grave… you brought me happiness in my dreams, I loved you long before I ever saw you, your face shone so close to me, and the sound of your voice delighted me for so long… no, that was no dream!

As soon as you entered, my heart recognised you again, leaped with joy, burned, and cried out, it is he, it must be him!

Was it not your breath that bathed me, speaking to me when I stood alone, when I tried to ease bitter poverty, when I prayed for comfort for my suffering soul?

Was it not your image, shining, gliding down from heaven into my bedroom, pressed to my pillow, whispering, and rocking me with sweet words promising happy hope?

Come and settle my doubts – which are you, angel or devil, tempter or protector and friend?

What if dreams are deceiving me, my foolish heart weeping vainly, and my deluded mind grasping empty hopes…?

So be it! My fate from now on rests in your hands, my tearful gaze seeks you, you are the only one who can comfort me…

See me standing alone, no one to understand me, ignored, my heart withering, my spirit languishing.

I shall die perforce, in silent agony.

Oh come – a single look from you revives the anxious hopes of my spirit.

If not, then put a harsh and frank end to this to these delusions! I am done.

How I already regret each word – I am filled with shame and horror…

But let your honour be my shelter, I trust myself to you without reserve…”

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

30

QUIETLY LYRICAL SCENES

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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A LEX EI PA R IN

for many years until in 2001 it was re­ moved from the repertoire as outdated.

At another major theatre, in the second decade of the 21st century an attempt was made to revive this production, but the look of the per­ formance at the dress rehearsal was almost laughable and the project was dropped. At the Helikon Opera in Moscow, Stanislavski’s production was soon presented with newly designed costumes that focused on aesthetic el­ egance, and Stanislavski’s idea again proved a success.

In 1982 Yuri Temirkanov, music di­ rector of the Kirov Opera (now Mari­ insky Theatre), put on the work. The performance revealed overall careful attention to the stage directions of the author, but something else was im­ portant. Temirkanov was filled with an almost divine awe of the music and conducted all the nuances with the in­ tegrity of chamber music, so that the lyricism of the music was perfectly ex­ pressed. Temirkanov was also pedanti­ cally demanding when it came to stage directions. This way only, just four steps, nothing more! And a miracle oc­ curred. There was a single cast for this production, everyone involved knew the tiniest step and the finest gesture by heart, and the audience at every performance was ecstatic. This pro­ duction is still in the repertoire at the Mariinsky, but with the cast changes it has lost its thrilling magic forever.

Another attempt to create a “com­ plete” Onegin was undertaken at the Moscow New Opera in 1996 under conductor Yevgeny Kolobov. At the time the theatre was performing in a provisionally adapted old cinema, and stage designer Sergei Barchin posi­ tioned the orchestra around the stage,

in some cases to one side or on elevated structures. The action was so cramped, almost as if rolled up, that one had the impression of looking through a mag­ nifying glass. The scenery, executed blue, showed an aristocratic interior that was on stage for the entire perfor­ mance; there was no intermission.

Kolobov had an unconvention­ al musical mode of expression in the spirit of the 1920s: he cut much of the score (including the initial ball scenes), made some changes (Gremin’s aria in Scene 6 was no longer a bass solo but sung by all the basses in the chorus), and he designed the performance like a Greek tragedy, ending with Onegin’s horrified final words from the original version: “O death, I am looking forward to you.” Kolobov was of the opinion that the entire opera was “a duel with a cap­ ital D” – between “Onegin and Lensky, Lensky and Olga, Onegin and Tatyana, Tatyana and Gremin.” Thanks to his artisanal skills, director Sergey Artsi­ bashev was able to execute Kolobov’s ideas without making any sacrifices.

For the first time, Onegin was relocated from a comfortable domestic setting to a semi-abstract space.

After that, the Helikon Opera put on a new production by Dmitri Bert­ man, who focused the action in the first scene on cooking preserves – which Kolobov indignantly saw as vilification of a great psychological tragedy. In Bertman’s production, this preparation of preserves even extend­ ed through to the final scene, when Onegin and Tatyana’s thoughts turn back to their past in the countryside.

Dmitri Tcherniakov’s 2006 produc­ tion on the New Stage at the Bolshoi Theatre restored the tender lyricism to

32

QUIETLY LYRICAL SCENES

Onegin that Tchaikovsky had intended for his music, and which, as Anna Ach­ matova said, can emerge “from any old sweepings.” Here too, in the first scene Larina and Filippyevna are no longer bottling fruit. And instead of peasants, it is the guests at the Larins’ table who eagerly strike up old country songs.

This produces an atmosphere of shared identity that is so dear to every Russian intellectual. In order to place the action in the “Now and Always”, Tcherniakov kept the walls of the Larin family home bare, with no pic­ tures or other decorations that might indicate the period. All the events, all the experiences are expressed meticu­ lously in each character, even in each individual guest at Tatyana’s name day celebration, so that the audience is drawn into the story from the very first moment and remains spellbound to the last chord.

Lensky’s aria is a directing master­ piece. Instead of a tearful soloistic ele­ gy, we are offered a three-dimensional ensemble; all the lyricism of the poet flows grotesquely into the gestures of a nameless, no longer young lady, while Olga makes angry remarks as she looks for a lost earring in every corner of the large room. It is in this vein that the entire work is to be seen: its lyricism is drawn unavoidably into the undercurrent of the indolent flow of everyday life and yet remains per­ ceptible in every bar of the music.

Andriy Zholdak’s production trans­ ports Onegin back into a symbolic space. Following Kolobov, at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St Petersburg the director used the language of the great tragedy, this time with mystic echoes. In doing so, he feels out the poetry and lyricism in its purest form.

While Tcherniakov resolves them in the hustle and bustle of real life, Zholdak drowns them in a sea of sym­ bols, each one of which is subtle to the last detail.

A black-and-white room, blackand-white costumes – everything is linked to scenes that speak a clear and living language. We live through an entire life cycle – and after the last scene, in which Tatyana has said fare­ well to Onegin, we once again hear the opening music. We see a manor house where Tatyana and Gremin are bringing up their happy daughter.

Tatyana is the same as in the first scene, she disperses glass beads on the stage; previously these were white, now they are black. All the characters in the opera have changed, with the excep­ tion of Onegin. He is still the sombre hero, always dressed in black, and bringing grief wherever he goes.

There are new interpretations of Onegin outside Russia as well. In Riga, Andrejs Žagars even depicted Tatyana’s dream with the bear (from Chapter 5 of the novel) and portrayed the heroine’s innermost emotions. Stefan Herheim in Amsterdam added reminiscences from Russian and Soviet history to Gremin’s ball scene; in Salzburg, Andrea Berth looked at the dark side of life in bondage of the enslaved in Rus­ sia, had Filippyevna die on the stage and had her grandson lay her in the freshly dug grave. Many moments in these productions were fittingly and clearly formulated and based on the music – and on real life.

But the most Russian production – in all the different senses of this word – remains that of Dmitri Tcherniakov.

In Russia there are currently fierce arguments about what holds the entire

33

QUIETLY LYRICAL SCENES

nation together. With Tcherniakov, we see a society that regards itself as so­ phisticated but that is at risk of drown­ ing in a sea of irony. We understand that there are people who possess a sense of their own dignity and can see themselves self-critically.

When we see and listen to this produc­ tion, we can hope that the future fate of Russia will not end in impasse, in a catastrophe, despite the hopelessness of its current situation. And that think­ ing people will finally return from their internal emigration.

34

ÉTIENNE DUPUIS as EUGENE ONEGIN

ANDREAS LÁNG

OF LEGENDS, SNOWSTORMS AND LONG BREAKS EUGENE ONEGIN AT THE

WIENER STAATSOPER Properly speaking, the history of Vien­ nese performances of Eugene Onegin began in Hamburg. Tchaikovsky was supposed to have directed the première there in January 1892 himself (the play­ bills printed in advance reported this proudly), but withdrew at short notice.

The language barrier – in line with the prevailing practice it was sung in Ger­ man – made the composer so uncertain after the one rehearsal he was allowed, that he claimed he was unwell and handed over the baton to the house’s musical director, who he described as “simply a genius” – Gustav Mahler, who liked the piece.

To the point where some 15 years later – 19 November 1897, to be pre­ cise – as a brand-new director of the Vienna Court Opera he made Eugene Onegin the first première of his official term, and presented the public with an important new title right from the start. A circumstance that the feared doyen of the critics Eduard Hanslick emphasised positively in his critique,

writing of the “deep gratitude we owe the Court Opera director for the per­ formance of Eugene Onegin.” The “we” was clearly not intended as the royal plural, but referred to all those present, whose thundering ovations seemed to overwhelm the auditorium.

The flow of the performance was repeatedly interrupted by applause lasting for minutes at a time, not least after the duel scene. Some of this was naturally due to the performers. Mahl­ er’s conducting was just as applauded as the popular Marie Renard as Tatya­ na, Wilhelm Hesch as Gremin, Josef Ritter in the title role and Fritz Schröd­ ter as Lensky. Even so, the piece itself was the focus of interest and applause.

There were a correspondingly large number of subsequent performances.

(Due to his esteem for Tchaikovsky, Mahler also gave Pique Dame and Iolanta their Vienna premières.)

By contrast, the staging and scenery of the first Vienna Eugene Onegin in Anton Brioschi’s deliberately splendid

36

OF LEGENDS, SNOWSTORMS AND LONG BREAKS

settings was very much in line with the practice at the time of simply dressing the stage. Only the almost inflation­ ary use of choreographic elements (the singers of both Tatyana and Olga had to constantly prove their skills as dancers) was a departure from the norm – as was the strikingly disas­ trous design of Lensky’s wig, which annoyed the audience just as much as the wearer. Mahler’s progressive ad­ vances in staging together with Alfred Roller were still short of realisation in this respect.

However, after the first euphoria, things quietened down greatly for Eugene Onegin. The attempt to bring it back into the spotlight with a revival in 1911 failed. Even names such as Rich­ ard Mayr (Gremin), Selma Kurz (Tatya­ na) or conductors such as Bruno Wal­ ter and Hugo Reichenberger had little effect. After four performances in five weeks, it was over, sets and costumes were disposed of or used elsewhere, the orchestral parts accumulated dust in the house archive.

This went on until musical direc­ tor Clemens Krauss brought the opera back from the shadows in April 1934.

He admittedly did not wield the baton himself – he left this to Bruno Walter, who threw himself into the fight with great conviction, and together with Lotte Lehmann as Tatyana achieved a comparable musical triumph to Mahler’s at the première, just under 40 years earlier. This was despite a rel­ atively weak Onegin, Karl Hammes, who was hardly able to communicate why Tatyana was so violently in love with him. More at home in the “lova­ ble Papageno” fach, as the Neue Freie Presse noted, Hammes was unable to do much in the title role.

The attempt to present him as a sort of Russian Hoffmann was as incredible as his vocal limits were obvious in the part. Director Otto Erhardt and his set designer Robert Kautsky had a com­ pletely different problem. The difficult economic situation forced them to find solutions that cost virtually nothing.

In any case, there was probably not too much creativity apparent on the stage in this respect. The well-meaning critic Josef Reitler said euphemistically, “Dr Erhardt brought colourful movement to the social scenes, and an unforced naturalness to the realistic events which posed as few limitations as pos­ sible to the performers.

He has that important virtue in a director of being always there, but unnoticed.” Later a successful Tosca director, Margarethe Wallmann was responsible for the successful choreog­ raphy. This production still had 32 per­ formances (to 1940), compared with only 24 for the previous production.

The intervals between the new pro­ ductions also became shorter. The next Eugene Onegin première followed in 1950, at the Theater an der Wien, the temporary quarters for the State Op­ era, which had been destroyed in the war. The sentence in the Wiener Zeitung that “Erich Wymetal’s production was tasteful, clean, if not particularly inventive” shows that no great further development had taken place in the setting since 1934 – not surprisingly, since the set designer was again Rob­ ert Kautsky. Public interest contin­ ued to focus on the musical side, and this was impressive beyond all doubt.

George London in the title role, Ljuba Welitsch as Tatyana, Anton Dermota as Lensky, all under the judicious ba­ ton of Meinhard Zallinger – what bet­

37

ANDREAS LÁNG

ter could a contemporary opera lover desire? And what more could director Franz Salmhofer want than the soldout performances of this Eugene Onegin brought him? Exactly.

The project was deemed a suc­ cess. Which could not be said of the 1961 production. Paul Hager’s staging seemed as bad as the previous one, possibly even worse, and completely indifferent to the action. Left to them­ selves by the director, each singer tried in their own way to find at least some way to shape the roles.

Some were more successful, such as Sena Jurinac as Tatyana, others less so, such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who presented a sort of blend of Man­ dryka and Count Almaviva, and oth­ ers again completely unsuccessful, such as Biserka Cvejić, who “flitted” around helplessly on the stage in ugly costumes, as the sharp-tongued critic Franz Endler commented in the Kronenzeitung. Unfortunately, the musical side again had many weaknesses. The chorus and orchestra seemed to be at odds over the tempo throughout the première, and Oskar Czerwenka as Gremin had “apparently forgotten to warm up” according to Endler. The re­ sult was a disappointed audience and only seven performances.

There was almost an interest­ ing staging in 1973. However, Rudolf Noelte’s ambitious concept was not to the taste of some of the arrogant ensemble, with the result that Noelte was replaced at short notice by Werner Kelch, who presented a tame version of the action in sets “based on designs by Jürgen Rose.” So much for the power relationships behind the scenes at the time! Conductor Peter Schrottner and Éva Marton as Tatyana joined only

shortly before or during re­ hearsals.

However, they were musically at least as successful as Bernd Weikl as Onegin and Peter Schreier as Lensky.

Despite the initial problems, and although hardly anyone was ever hap­ py with the production, it stayed on the schedule for over a quarter of a centu­ ry, and offered numerous prominent interpreters on both the conductor’s podium and the stage an opportunity for unforgettable artistic performanc­ es. For example, the subsequent mu­ sic director Seiji Ozawa débuted with brilliant success in the revival in 1988, rehearsed by Grischa Asagaroff (in Russian for the first time), followed by Asher Fisch and Simone Young. The cast of 1988 with Mirella Freni (Tat­ yana), Peter Dvorský (Lensky), Nico­ lai Ghiaurov (Gremin) and Wolfgang Brendel (Eugene Onegin) has become as legendary as the subsequent ap­ pearances of Thomas Hampson (1997 revival) and Bo Skovhus as Onegin, Ileana Cotrubaş, Anna Tomowa-Sin­ tow, Gabriele Beňačková and Adrianne Pieczonka as Tatyana and Neil Shicoff as Lensky.

The successful playwright and award-winning director Falk Richter tried his hand directing Eugene Onegin at Wiener Staatsoper in 2009. He moved much of the action to a timeless landscape with steadily falling snow and furniture made of ice cubes. The set represented Russia and the emo­ tional glaciation of the society – and gained few supporters.

Even so, it served for the next ten years as a setting for several of the most prominent singers of the times, includ­ ing Anna Netrebko, Maija Kovalevska and Marina Rebeka as Tatyana, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Simon Keenlyside, Pe­

38

OF LEGENDS, SNOWSTORMS AND LONG BREAKS

ter Mattei and Christopher Maltman in the title role, Ramón Vargas, Pavol Breslik, Rolando Villazón and Dmitry Korchak as Lensky and Ferruccio Fur­ lanetto as Gremin. The first series con­ ducted by Seiji Ozawa was followed by some less prominent figures and conductors such as Kirill Petrenko and Andris Nelsons.

In the course of the renewal of central works in the repertoire by ex­

emplary productions, the première of the current staging was conducted

by Tomáš Hanus. Originally staged at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre, it was revised by the celebrated Russian di­ rector Dmitri Tcherniakov at the Wie­ ner Staatsoper on 25 October 2020 with prominent representatives of the young generation of singers, adding a major chapter to the history of Vienna performances of Eugene Onegin.

39

Next page: ASMIK GRIGORIAN as TATYANA ANDRÈ SCHUEN as EUGENE ONEGIN

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!

IMPRINT PYOTR I. TCHAIKOVSKY

EUGENE ONEGIN SEASON 2023/24 PREMIÈRE OF THE PRODUCTION 25.10.2020 Publisher WIENER STAATSOPER GMBH, Opernring 2, 1010 Wien Director DR. BOGDAN ROŠČIĆ Music Director PHILIPPE JORDAN Administrative Director DR. PETRA BOHUSLAV General Editors SERGIO MORABITO, ANDREAS LÁNG, OLIVER LÁNG Design & concept EXEX Layout & typesetting MIWA MEUSBURGER Image concept: MARTIN CONRADS, BERLIN (Cover) All performance photos MICHAEL PÖHN Printed by PRINT ALLIANCE HAV PRODUKTIONS GMBH, BAD VÖSLAU TEXT REFERENCES All texts were taken from the première programme of the Vienna State Opera (25.10.2020). COVER IMAGE Detroit Publishing Co., Publisher. Ice fountain, Washington Boulevard, Detroit, Mich. [Between 1910 and 1920] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www. loc.gov/item/2016814213. ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS Andrew Smith (all texts with the exception of the synopsis).

Reproduction only with approval of Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Dramaturgy. Abbreviations are not marked. Holders of rights who were unavailable are requested to make contact regarding retrospect compensation.

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