On her estate, the shy Tatiana dreams of great love – until Lenskij, her sister Olga’s admirer, introduces her to his new friend Eugen Onegin one day. Tatiana is immediately enamoured of Onegin, but the latter does not return her love; on the contrary, he declares to her that he sees marriage as torture. When Onegin dances only with Olga at a party in order to provoke Tatiana, Lenskij challenges him to a duel – and is killed. Years later, Tatiana and Onegin meet again; Onegin now feels deeply for Tatiana. However, she is now married; Onegin is forced to realise, too late, that he has ruined his own life.
Conductor Fedoseyev, who as a Tchaikovsky connoisseur devotes all his attention to the score’s quiet sounds, elastic tempi and lyrical colours, is a stroke of luck for the Zurich production. He does not lead the Opera Orchestra and his ensemble through the evening as a precise “technician”, but with a subtle feeling for the temperatures of the music, and thus transports much of Tchaikovsky’s artistic vision into the present, beyond mere enjoyment.
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