»Happiness was so near, so close!« We all know these »If only I had…« moments. Here, Pushkin and Tchaikovsky capture these feelings and shape them into lyrical scenes – gripping, tragic, and at times humorous. »Eugene Onegin« unites many facets, embodying the passion and inner conflict of the composer Tchaikovsky: on the one hand, a grand choral opera, on the other, an oppressive chamber drama of broken friendship and youthful recklessness. The young Tatiana plucks up the courage to defy convention and declare her love to an experienced man. He coldly rejects her and, in the process, destroys not only another young life but also a blossoming love. Decades later, despite lingering melancholy, Tatiana proves to be the more mature of the two …

The love letter that Tatiana writes to Onegin most strongly fired Tchaikovsky’s imagination and thus became the subject of the first scene he composed. »If the listener were to feel even a tiny part of what I felt while composing, I would be extremely happy.«

In this production, transferred from Opera Bonn, Vasily Barkhatov follows with meticulous precision the musical ideas contained in the score, enabling the audience to identify immediately with the characters and to share in their emotions. This »Eugene Onegin« is an evening of profound emotional upheaval and dreamlike beauty.