Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

As an opera composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky is known for two outstanding operas, The Queen of Spades (1890) and today's feature, Eugene Onegin (1879), although he wrote at least seven other lyric stageworks.

Tchaikovsky sought to avoid Wagnerian pomposity in composing music for a libretto he prepared himself from the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin about the Byronic Russian aristocrat Onegin. Tchaikovsky even refused to grace his creation with the official title of "opera," fearing his "lyrical scenes" might be interpreted as a grand opera, which would ruin the delicacy of his musical treatment of a psychologically complex love story. The wisdom of his artistic approach has helped to win for Eugene Onegin a place on the periphery of the international operatic repertoire.

There is a rather considerable Onegin discography. Way back on Sunday, June 9, 1991 I broadcast the Sony Classical CD issue of a recorded production of Onegin by the Sofia National Opera of Bulgaria. Today you get to hear a German production that Deutsche Grammophon picked up. It was recorded in Dresden in 1987 with the Staatskapelle Dresden orchestra under the baton of that seasoned American opera conductor James Levine. British baritone Thomas Allen portrays Onegin. Opposite him as Tatiana is the Italian soprano Mirella Freni. Heard as Olga is the Swedish mezzo Anne Sofia von Otter. The chorus of Radio Leipzig takes part in the proceedings. The two DGG compact discs were released in 1988. Sung in the original Russian.