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The Transformation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin into Tchaikovsky's Opera

Doran, Molly Catherine
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1338408083

Abstract Details

2012, Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, Music History.
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.
Eftychia Papanikolaou (Advisor)
Megan Rancier (Committee Member)
82 p.
History; Literature; Music; Russian History; Slavic Literature; Slavic Studies
Tchaikovsky; Pushkin; Eugene Onegin; Tatiana; novel in verse; irony; Byron; opera; transformation

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Doran, M. C. (2012). The Transformation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin into Tchaikovsky's Opera [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1338408083

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Doran, Molly. The Transformation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin into Tchaikovsky's Opera. 2012. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1338408083.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Doran, Molly. "The Transformation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin into Tchaikovsky's Opera." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1338408083

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2012, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.