Eugene Onegin (opera)

Eugene Onegin (Евгений Онегин in Russian) is an opera by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. It is usually thought to be his greatest opera and one of the best of all Russian operas. Tchaikovsky finished composing it in 1878 and it was first performed in Moscow in 1879.

The story of Eugene Onegin was written by Alexander Pushkin. He was Russia’s most famous writer and Tchaikovsky made several of his stories into operas. He was careful not to make the opera too long, and chose several chapters from Pushkin’s original book so that the story sometimes jumps from one time to a time much later. Russian operas are quite often like this: they are a series of “tableaux”, i.e. scenes from a story. Sometimes the audience has to imagine what happens between the acts.