Title: The Transformation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin into Tchaikovsky's Opera
Abstract:Since receiving its first performance in 1879, Pyotr
Il’yich Tchaikovsky’s fifth opera, Eugene Onegin (1877-1878), has
garnered much attention from both music scholars and prominent
figures in Russian...Since receiving its first performance in 1879, Pyotr
Il’yich Tchaikovsky’s fifth opera, Eugene Onegin (1877-1878), has
garnered much attention from both music scholars and prominent
figures in Russian literature. Despite its largely enthusiastic
reception in musical circles, it almost immediately became the
target of negative criticism by Russian authors who viewed the
opera as a trivial and overly romanticized embarrassment to
Pushkin’s novel. Criticism of the opera often revolves around the
fact that the novel’s most significant feature—its self-conscious
narrator—does not exist in the opera, thus completely changing one
of the story’s defining attributes. Scholarship in defense of the
opera began to appear in abundance during the 1990s with the work
of Alexander Poznansky, Caryl Emerson, Byron Nelson, and Richard
Taruskin. These authors have all sought to demonstrate that the
opera stands as more than a work of overly personalized
emotionalism. In my thesis I review the relationship between the
novel and the opera in greater depth by explaining what
distinguishes the two works from each other, but also by looking
further into the argument that Tchaikovsky’s music represents the
novel well by cleverly incorporating ironic elements as a means of
capturing the literary narrator’s sardonic voice. An in-depth study
of Pushkin’s novel and its creation is included. Through the use of
translated primary sources in addition to secondary ones, I analyze
in detail both Tchaikovsky’s compositional journey and the opera
itself in order to discover what drove the composer to pick only
seven “scenes” from the novel and whether he viewed the opera as a
genuine representation or simply an artistically liberal
interpretation of Pushkin’s work. Ultimately, Pushkin’s novel and
Tchaikovsky’s opera represent multifaceted and personal creations
that stand as the results of unique circumstances and perspectives.
Understanding the connections between the two works—and especially
the translation of the novel’s most unique qualities to the
opera—only becomes possible after they are studied separately and
comprehensively. In my thesis I attempt to shed light on the two
works independently and illuminate in detail this artistic and
musical transformation.Read More
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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