Eugene Onegin
The Standard Repertoire, entry #1
I’m exploring the idea of writing a series of pieces about each of the ~50 operas in the Western Standard Repertoire (loosely defined, and maybe more than 50 if I don’t run out of steam). Depending on how I feel about this one, I’ll write a proper introduction next week.
Many operas attempt to be romantic, but far fewer succeed, even when they don’t end in murder. I myself have a particular loathing for La Traviata, whose reputation as a great romantic classic is burnished by that one scene from Pretty Woman. I believe Traviata has a fundamental falsity, even cruelty, at its center. But more on that another time.
Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, adapted from the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin, would be my choice for the most romantic opera in the canon, even though (or perhaps because) it is pessimistic. There are three passionate declarations of love, and all of them go unconsummated. But each of them comes with music so full of feeling, full of longing for a future of fulfilled desire and true understanding, that they easily outdo all the stiff heroes and heroines of Verdi. I’ll caveat that I haven’t read the Pushkin, and I suspect its themes are broader than the opera’s.
The opera opens with two older women reminiscing about their youth. One of them was in love with a handsome gambler, but was married off without her consent to someone else. “How I cried,” she sings, “but I busied myself with the household, resigned myself, and settled down.” The other replies: “God be thanked.” In the end, it turned out alright, they agree. Their duet returns a few times to a devastating line that I think about all the time: “God gives us habit as a replacement for happiness.”1 Meanwhile, two sisters sing a romantic song in the background.
Enter two visiting gentlemen: Lenski and his friend Onegin. Lenski is a poet, and the more cheerful of the two. He’s come to the country house to visit his adored fiancée Olga, and convinced Onegin to come along.
Onegin is a recognizable type: he’s a handsome city sophisticate, bored with life, accustomed to having women fall in love with him. He likes to show off his knowledge of art and literature, and his preferred social mode is a vaguely melancholy nonchalance. He’s a bit annoyed with Lenski for having dragged him out to the country; it’s not the kind of company he prefers.
The two men meet the two sisters: Olga, Lenski’s fiancée, who is cheerful and flirtatious, and Tatiana, a quiet dreamer who loves to read.
In the account of Constantin Stanislavski’s work with opera singers at the Moscow Opera Studio in the book Stanislavski on Opera (which I wrote about for VAN Magazine here) the great director instructs his Onegin thusly:
A sixteen-year-old girl faced with a Shalyapin2 — that is the essence of the situation when you and Tatiana meet. She is awkward, even absurd. She is just a frightened girl. And what you have to undertake is to make her see how noble you are. You should have at your command a whole arsenal of Byronic attitudes. These are the poses of a world-weary man, indifferent to everything. At the big society balls such young men would stand about alone, leaning against columns in the most contrived poses. One arm thrust in your coat à la Napoleon, your head all but concealed inside a high collar, languishing eyes, feet pointing outwards, nothing overdone yet all calculated to make an impression.”
Of course, Tatiana falls in love with Onegin immediately. This is the man who will finally understand her, she thinks. And in the next scene, the most famous in the opera, she stays up all night writing him a love letter.
This scene, the “Letter Scene,” is one of the reasons why, as much as I love Sondheim, I get annoyed when he starts talking about how innovative it was in 20th-century musical theater to include songs that advance the story and are woven into the dramatic action, or songs that try to naturalistically portray a messy emotional experience. We’ve had that all this time! And yes, the Letter Scene is nothing if not operatic — no one will mistake this for real life — but it actually works in a quite sophisticated way, both musically and dramatically.
The scene is long — nearly fifteen minutes, depending on the conductor — and is at a heightened emotional pitch throughout, ranging from tender to exalted as she stops, rewrites, digresses, second-guesses herself, and finally decides to pour out everything. Sometimes she writes without singing while the orchestra communicates her feelings, sometimes she stops to form her thoughts before putting them to paper.
Below you can watch the climactic and very beautiful last few minutes of the scene, sung here by Tatiana Monogarova (forgive the inexplicably ugly nightgown and the melodramatic lighting effects).
If at some point in your life you were a dreamy romantic teenager with a crush, there’s an excellent chance you have written a letter like this (“I’m all alone here, no one understands me,” writes Tatiana at one point). If you’re lucky, you didn’t send it — as you can likely guess, sending the letter doesn’t work out very well for Tatiana. The scene and the music capture that particular adolescent sensation, full of dread, of believing that the person you’re pining for, a person you hardly know, can either usher you into your real life, allowing you to transform into the person you want to be — or else crush you. Onegin, who persists in a rootless state while others grow up around him, gets his turn much later.
The Letter Scene is immediately preceded by a short sequence where Tatiana’s nurse relates the story of her own marriage, arranged by a marriage broker at thirteen. She wept with fright at the wedding, she says, and afterward found herself living among strangers. The idea that love might lead to happiness, for the older characters, is a frivolous one.
Listen to the full Letter Scene here:
Some other musical highlights:
Lenski’s heartwrenching aria, where he laments his impending death and thinks fondly of Olga:
Prince Gremin’s aria, from the only character who is pleased about how his love life turned out:
And, of course, a grand old Waltz:
I’m using this translated libretto as a reference, but I’m massaging the translation a bit to match my preferences and make it sound less old-fashioned. Take that as you will.
This is a reference to the great and imposing Russian bass, Feodor Chaliapin.
I would love to read such a series. FWIW!!!