Ballet by John Cranko
Music by Peter I. Tchaikovsky (arranged by Kurt-Heinz Stolze)

 

Eugene Onegin, a young, seemingly self-absorbed aristocrat is tired of life in the city and travels to the countryside with his friend Lensky to visit his fiancée, Olga. In the idyllic surrounding of the Larina family, he encounters shy Tatyana, who is completely immersed in her books. The beautiful young girl falls in love with him immediately and confesses her feelings to him in a letter. Onegin rejects her and tears up the letter in front of her, leaving behind a shattered Tatyana. Lensky eventually challenges Onegin to a duel after his friend provoked him by dancing exuberantly with Olga. Years later Onegin meets the elegant and distinguished Tatyana at a soirée who, in the meantime, has married Prince Gremin.

 

Choreographer John Cranko's story ballet was adapted from Pushkin's eponymous verse novel, creating one of the 20th century ballet masterpieces. With his incomparable feeling for subliminal sensitivities which are choreographically and representatively inscribed in the ballet's characters, John Cranko tells the myth of unfulfilled love. The music is based on compositions by Peter I. Tchaikovsky without referencing a single bar from his eponymous opera.