Eugene Onegin Synopsis
- About the Ballet
The drama behind the dance
San Francisco Ballet’s evolution as a creative force in the dance world has been driven by its visionary leaders. Since 1952, just four Artistic Directors have carried the torch, each leaving a distinctive mark on the company. This year’s Spring Festival will honor their legacy, featuring choreography that represents their contribution to SF Ballet’s rich history.
Prologue
Eugene Onegin, a fashionable but emotionally detached young aristocrat, inherits his uncle’s country estate. Unmoved by rural life, he arrives in the provinces restless and disenchanted with life both in the city and countryside.
Act 1 – Spring
How sad I find your apparition,
O spring!… O time of love’s unrest!
What sombre echoes of ambition
Then stir my blood and fill my breast!
What tender and oppressive yearning
Possesses me on spring’s returning,
When in some quiet rural place
I feel her breath upon my face
The spirits of nature announce the arrival of spring.
At the Larins’ family estate, the light-hearted Olga and her introspective, bookish sister Tatiana anxiously await the arrival of guests. The youthful and romantic Vladimir Lensky, who is engaged to Olga, emerges from a carriage, introducing his new friend Eugene Onegin to Olga’s family.
Tatiana is captivated by Onegin’s sophisticated aloofness, and her imagination fills in what he withholds. In a moment of emotional honesty, she writes him a passionate letter confessing her love. At dawn, she convinces her nanny to deliver the letter, placing her fate in Onegin’s hands.
Onegin rejects Tatiana’s sentiment, saying he is unsuitable for marriage. Returning her letter, his refusal is profoundly painful.
The spring spirits are replaced by the summer spirits.
Act 2 – Summer
Our northern summers, though, are versions
of southern winters, this is clear;
And though we’re loath to cast aspersions,
They seem to go before they’re here!
In the Larin home, Tatiana and Olga, surrounded by friends, are divining their fates and the names of their future husbands with an old book.
Tatiana reads from the book, places it under her pillow, and upon falling asleep has a wild dream filled with frightening creatures, including rabbits, a boar, a wolf, an owl, and a horse, followed by the eerie presence of Olga and Lensky. A foreboding bear appears, while forcing Tatiana to dance with him, the bear seizes Lensky and stabs him with a knife. As Lensky falls, the bear removes its head and gloves: it is Onegin standing before her. The dream plunges into darkness. This ominous vision predicts Onegin’s future destructive influence on her life and the lives around her, and his eventual possessive desire for her, even as it highlights her subconscious fears and desires.
The summer spirits appear.
At Tatiana’s name-day celebration, an irritated and bored Onegin flirts openly with Olga. Lensky, humiliated and jealous, challenges his friend to a duel. What begins as wounded pride ends in irreversible tragedy.
The crimson summer now grows pale;
Clear, bright days now soar away.*
INTERMISSION
Act 3 – Autumn
The sky breathed autumn, turned and darkled;
The friendly sun less often sparkled;
The days grew short…
The spirits of autumn dance.
Among the fallen leaves, Lensky appears, tormented at facing a duel with his dear friend. At dawn, Onegin senselessly and mechanically kills Lensky. The tragic death shatters the lives of all involved. Onegin quickly departs the countryside. Despite the shocking news of Lensky’s death, Olga quickly moves on, marrying a soldier she meets with remarkable ease. Tatiana is left to reckon with loss and disillusionment.
How sad that youth, with all its power,
Was given us in vain, to burn;
That we betrayed it every hour,
And were deceived by it in turn;
That all our finest aspirations,
Our brightest dreams and inspirations,
Have withered with each passing day
Like leaves dank autumn rots away
Act 4 – Winter
I’ve known great beauties proudly distant,
As cold and chaste as winter snow;
Implacable, to all resistant,
Impossible for mind to know;
I’ve marvelled at their haughty manner,
Their natural virtue’s flaunted banner;
And I confess, from them I fled,
As if in terror I had read
Above their brows the sign of Hades:
“Abandon Hope, Who Enter Here!”
Years later, in St Petersburg, Onegin encounters Tatiana again. Now a poised woman and married to Prince Gremin, he is captivated by her beauty and transformation from country girl to established, sophisticated woman. Onegin realizes too late that he loves her.
Confessing his love to Tatiana, he sees the mix of joy and sorrow in her expression. While it seems she is on the verge of reciprocating his feelings, she ultimately chooses loyalty and self-command over desire.
Tatiana leaves Onegin with his regret. As Onegin steps outside, he pays no heed to the cold or the wind. He stands, gazing at the sky, as if crushed by it.
Storm has set the heavens scowling,
Whirling gusty blizzards wild,
Now they are like beasts a-growling,
Now a-wailing like a child.
Passages taken verbatim from the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Eugene Onegin, translated by James E. Falen.
*by Andrey Kneller
Purchase tickets for Eugene Onegin
Jan 23 – Feb 1
