Eugene Onegin at Sava Centar on September 5 - Belgrade's National Theatre brings the most performed Russian opera of them all

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's opera "Eugene Onegin" is being staged at Sava Centar in Belgrade on September 5, in the Blue Hall. The production comes from the National Theatre in Belgrade, directed by Mario Pavle del Monaco.

Tchaikovsky finished the opera in 1878, working from Alexander Pushkin's novel in verse of the same name. The composer himself called it "lyrical scenes" rather than an opera, because he threw out the classic operatic plot of intrigue and crime and went after something less spectacular and far harder to pull off - what people actually feel when they miss the right moment. Tatyana writes Onegin a letter, he turns her down. Years later he comes looking for her, she is married and turns him down. Between those two rejections sits a duel in which Onegin kills his friend Lensky over nothing at all.

That is exactly why "Eugene Onegin" remains the most performed Russian opera in the world. Tatyana's letter scene is one of the hardest soprano passages in the entire repertoire - twenty-odd minutes in which one woman alone on stage decides to change her life, while the audience already knows she will fail. Lensky's aria before the duel, "Kuda, kuda vy udalilis", is the piece every tenor carries around like an exam he has to pass.

The National Theatre in Belgrade has had this opera in its repertoire for decades, but moving it to Sava Centar means a bigger stage and a bigger crowd than the home house allows. Tickets are on sale through tickets.rs, and the performance starts at 8pm in the Blue Hall.