Lyrical scenes in three acts - this is how Eugene Onegin described hisPyotr Tchaikovsky, composing his new opera at an express pace, which he did not want to call the spectacular one. Alexander Pushkin's digressive poem was recommended to the composer by a friend, suggesting that it was an excellent material for a stage adaptation. Tchaikovsky was so enchanted by this work that, under inspiration, he drew up the first draft of the libretto in one night, and two months later he completed three-quarters of the work - he completed the whole work in February 1878 and immediately asked Mikołaj Rubinstein, director of the Moscow Conservatory, to tried the new creation with students. Tchaikovsky did not want to entrust it to the Moscow Grand Theater for fear that the large stage would destroy the intimate, personal mood that he managed to capture on the pages of the score. He decided to do it only two years later,Eugeniusz Onegin to the world's opera stages.
The lyrical scenes take place in a Russian village, where a cloudy and distant gentleman from St. Petersburg - Onegin arrives. This dandy, out of boredom, falls in love with the innocent Miss Tatiana, who gives her heart to him with youthful trust - but he, a fatal man, rejects this love with contempt. After an unfortunate duel in which he kills his good-natured friend, the poet Lensky, Onegin disappears. She returns years later, when Tatiana is already a great lady, the wife of Prince Griemin, and she is organizing a ball opened with a solemn polonaise. Seeing her so beautiful and wonderful, Onegin, old and bitter, goes mad with love. His enthusiasm impresses Tatiana, but it breaks out of his shoulders, explaining that she is a happily married woman. Onegin is left alone, cursing his miserable fate.
In a beautiful, poetic staging from 2002, Mariusz Treliński saw a contemporary feature in the history of the nineteenth-century dandy and told it subtly, but also with a flourish due to the third, "ball" act, carried out in the excellent scenography of Boris Kudlička, in the spectacular costumes of Joanna Klimas. The viewers remember a handsome, symbolic tree of good and bad, a symbol of Eden standing in the middle of a blissful Russian village - thanks to Onegin, Tatiana receives a bitter lesson in life and learns the difficult art of choice. The story of a dandy who squanders a chance for love and friendship is led in the performance by the mysterious figure of O ***, symbolizing the old Onegin, giving the whole a metaphysical perspective.
The role of Onegin in Treliński's performance was played by the best Polish baritones: Mariusz Kwiecień, Marcin Bronikowski, Artur Ruciński, Stanisław Kuflyuk.
