Opera Plots I - MDC Faculty Home Pages

the coquette Filina, who soon consoles herself with her other lovers, Laertes and Frederick. When
Mignon recovers, therefore, he succeeds in winning her hand; and when Lotario presently appears
in his rightful garb as an Italian noble it is proved by Mignons production of a girdle and trinket
she has always preserved that she is indeed his long-lost daughter, as he had hoped and believed.
170. EUGÈNE ONEGIN
Grand Opera in Three Acts By Peter Ilyitch Tschaikowsky
Libretto By Kashkin (Adapted from Poushkin's Poetic Romance)
First Produced St Petersburg, May, 1877
Chief Characters Tatiana, Olga, Madame Larmna, Philipjewna, Eugène Onegin, Lenski, Prince
Gremin
THE scene is laid in Russia in the present time.
Act 1 opens upon the terrace of Madame Larinas country abode, where the lady of the house is
picking fruit with the old nurse, Philipjewna, and watching her two daughters, Olga and Tatiana,
who are singing and moving about the garden. Olga is lively and merry; but Tatiana is of a more
pensive and sentimental nature. Presently visitors arrive. These are Olgas fiancé, Lenski, and his
friend, Eugène Onegin, whom he introduces to the family, and who is given a hearty welcome.
Onegin is a somewhat blasé man of the world, who has drunk deep of the pleasures of life, and has
lost faith in most things; but his air of gloomy sadness makes him doubly attractive to the dreamy
Tatiana, who at once conceives a violent attachment for him, which deepens as she strolls in the
garden and talks with him. So great is the young girls infatuation that she sits up all night
composing a letter to him, in which she artlessly confesses her love and begs him to meet her in
the garden next day; and this she gives to the old nurse to deliver to the guest. When the pair meet,
however, Onegin, being merely amused at the young girls romantic outburst, coolly declares that
he has only a friendly feeling for her, and he advises her to learn to restrain her emo-tions in
future. This leaves Tatiana overcome with shame at her own foolish conduct, and she endeavours
to avoid Onegin and to bury her love for him.
In Act 2 Madame Larina gives a ball, at which Onegin, for the mere sake of amusement, gets up a
flirtation with Olga, who, being of a merry and somewhat frivolous disposition, very readily
responds, in order to punish her fiancé, Lenski, whose serious passion often bores her; and this so
rouses Lenskis jealousy that he finally challenges his friend. Onegin, seeing that he has gone too
far, and sorry for the trouble he has so carelessly caused, tries to soothe the angry lover; but Lenski
refuses to listen to his protestations and the duel is arranged. In the next scene the duel takes place,
and Lenski falls dead, to the great grief of Onegin, who departs at once, more world-weary than
ever.
In Act 3, which takes place five years later, we are introduced to a brilliant assembly at the Palace
of Prince Gremin; and here Onegin appears, having just returned from his wanderings, during
which he has always been haunted by remorse for having caused the death of his friend Lenski. He
is gloomy and uninterested in the proceedings until Prince Gremin introduces him to his wife, and