Eugene Onegin

«And happiness was so possible… so near…»

From our school years, we have known the story of the peculiar love between Tatyana Larina and Eugene Onegin. But is Pushkin’s classic novel really only about that? After all, the lines we learned by heart do not mean that this textbook masterpiece has revealed all of its undertones and hidden meanings to us!

In truth, Alexander Pushkin - who was no stranger to playing with the reader and weaving elements of mystification into his plot - touched upon many essential themes, relevant to any era. The creators of this production sought to decipher them, to follow the clues hidden within the flowing Onegin stanza, to delve into the author’s intent, and to speak about our contemporary world with the same delicacy and passion with which Pushkin himself once did. Today’s audience will find much to marvel at, discovering new facets in familiar characters that defy their usual interpretations.

At the same time, Moscow director Oleg Plaksin’s staging of Eugene Onegin preserves the genre of the original source - the «novel in verse» - as well as the beauty of the work, the lightness and soaring rhythm of Pushkin’s poetry, the fragrance of that era, and the charm of its heroes.

Curiously enough, the premiere is scheduled for September 22, 23, and 24, 2023. Work on Eugene Onegin itself began in 1823 and was completed on September 25, 1830. This play of numbers and dates feels symbolically Pushkinian!

«You never love anyone, nor know anyone, as deeply as yourself. An inexhaustible subject. Yet a difficult one. You may avoid lying; but to be fully sincere - that is a physical impossibility.»
- A. S. Pushkin

This quotation from the classic, adorning the programme for the Eugene Onegin production, prepares the audience not only for unexpected discoveries within the plot of a novel known since childhood, but also for an honest conversation with oneself - another attempt to answer the eternal questions: What is Life? And what am I in this Life?