Eugen Onegin

Lyrical scenes in three acts by Peter I. Tchaikovsky | libretto by Peter I. Tchaikovsky and Konstantin S.Shilovsky based on the verse novel by Alexander Pushkin | in Russian with German & English surtitles

Duration: 3 hours | one intermission | ages 14 and up

"How happiness was once so near!" We all know those "Oh, if only I had..." moments. Here Pushkin and Tchaikovsky take on these feelings and capture them in lyrical scenes; stirring, tragic and also humorous. "Eugene Onegin" combines many facets and thus also stands for the passion and inner conflict of the composer Tchaikovsky: on the one hand a great choral opera, on the other an oppressive chamber drama of broken friendship and youthful recklessness. The young girl Tatyana takes heart and, against convention, declares her love for an experienced man. He coldly rejects her and subsequently destroys both another young life and another blossoming love affair. Decades later and despite her melancholy, Tatjana proves to be the more mature of the two ...

The love letter that Tatyana writes to Onegin fires Tchaikovsky's imagination the most and thus becomes the subject of the first scene he composes. "If the listener alone could feel a tiny part of what I felt while composing, I would be extremely happy."

In this production, a transfer from the Bonn Opera, Vasily Barkhatov meticulously follows the musical ideas contained in the score, allowing the audience to immediately identify and empathize with the operatic characters. This "Eugene Onegin" is an evening full of emotional upheaval and fantastically beautiful images.