Vladimir Eugene Onegin: The 1884 Premiere in St. Petersburg
On October 19, 1884, Tchaikovsky’s “lyrical scenes” were heard for the first time on an imperial stage, at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, with Eduard Nápravník at the podium. It was that evening that turned a chamber student production into the great Russian opera.
Today the site of the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre is occupied by the Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg Conservatory. And 142 years ago the fate of an opera was decided here, an opera that Tchaikovsky himself considered too delicate and personal for a large stage.
How the “lyrical scenes” became the great Russian opera
1. First Moscow and the students
The first production of Eugene Onegin took place in Moscow as early as 1879, with conservatory students on stage. Tchaikovsky deliberately did not give the opera to an imperial theatre: he was writing not about operatic passions but about subtlety, relationships, depth and the drama of living people. That is why he modestly labeled the genre “lyrical scenes.”
2. St. Petersburg: scale and significance
Five years later the opera moved to the imperial stage of the capital. The production was led by Eduard Nápravník, principal conductor of the Mariinsky Opera, the man under whom the best Russian scores of the era appeared in St. Petersburg. After that evening Onegin ceased to be a chamber experiment: the public saw in it a grand opera, and theatres across Russia began to add it to their repertoire.
3. An écossaise for the big stage
For the St. Petersburg stage Tchaikovsky added the Écossaise, the swift dance at Gremin’s ball. A chamber score needed the sweep of an imperial theatre, and the composer gave it: the ball sounded so that even the last row of the gallery could feel its scale.
Where to start listening to Onegin
For those who love Tchaikovsky or are only beginning their acquaintance with opera, I recommend four numbers, through which you can hear the whole dramaturgy:
1. Onegin’s aria
A cold rebuff to Tatiana: the answer of a man who does not yet understand what he is giving up.
2. Gremin’s aria
“Love is for all ages” is one of the most recognizable bass arias in Russian opera.
3. The scene in the garden
The meeting of Tatiana and Onegin after the letter, the moment when everything changes.
4. The duel of Lensky and Onegin
The duel scene is the most tragic and the quietest ending of a friendship in Russian music.
