Onegin

Three-act ballet by John Cranko

Based on the novel by Alexander Pushkin

National Ballet of China Production

Executive Director and Producer: Feng Ying

Choreography by John Cranko

Music: P.I. Tchaikovsky, Arranged and orchestrated by K.H. Stolze

Sets and Costumes: Thomas Mika

Light Design: Steen Bjarke

Supervised by: Reid Anderson

Copyright: Dieter Graefe

Stage Operator: Gong Xun, Liu Xin

Lighting Operator: Liu Zhao

World Premiere: 13 April, 1965, Stuttgart Ballet, Württembergische Staatstheater, Stuttgart

Chinese Premiere: 19 December 2008, National Ballet of China, Tianqiao Theatre, Beijing

Re- staged by the NBC： December 16th to 19th 2021, Beijing Tianqiao Theater December 16th to 19th 2021, Beijing Tianqiao Theater

National Ballet of China

Artistic Director: Feng Ying

General Répétiteurs: Zhu Yan, Xu Gang

Répétiteurs: Zhang Jian, Wang Qimin, Li Jun, Wang Qi, Wang Hao

Piano Accompaniments: Yin Yue, Wang Jing, Huang Xilun

National Ballet of China Symphony Orchestra

Conductor: Zhang Yi

Concert Master: Wang Xiaomao

Stage Production: Stage Production Department of NBC

Stage Manager: Qi Jinsong

Cast

Tatiana （Madame Larina's daughter） : Zhang Jian, Qiu Yunting, Xu Yan

Eugene Onegin: Ma Xiaodong, Li Wentao, Sun Ruichen

Lensky: Zheng Yu, Chen Zhuming, Zeng Shuai, Wang Jiyu

Olga（Madame Larina's daughter）: Zhan Xinlu, Wang Ye, Chen Haibei

Prince Gremin: Cui Kai, Sun Haifeng, Wu Dianyu

Madame Larina: Liu Xuechen

Their Nurse: Shi Liyang

Synopsis of Onejin (A Ballet in Three Acts)

Act I Scene I - Madame Larina's Garden

Madame Larina, Olga, and the nurse are finishing the party dresses and gossiping about Tatiana's coming birthday festivities. Madame Larina speculates on the future and reminisces about her own lost beauty and youth.

Lensky, a young poet engaged to Olga, arrives with a friend from St. Petersburg. He introduces Onegin, who, bored with the city has come to see if the country can offer him any distraction. Tatiana, full of youthful and romantic fantasies, falls in love with the elegant stranger, so different from the country people she knows. Onegin on the other hand sees in Tatiana only a naive country girl who reads too many romantic novels.

Act I Scene II – Tatiana's Bedroom

Tatiana, Her imagination aflame with impetuous first-love, dreams of Onegin and writes him a passionate love-letter which she gives to her nurse to deliver.

Act II Scene I – Tatiana's Bithday

The provincial gentry have come to celebrate Tatiana's birthday. They gossip about Lensky's infatuation with Olga and whisper prophecies of a dawning romance between Tatiana and the newcomer. Onegin finds the company boring. Stifling his yawns, he finds it difficult to be civil to them: furthermore, he is irritated by Tatiana's letter which he regards merely as an outburst of adolescent love. In a quiet moment, he seeks out Tatiana, and telling her that he cannot love her, tears up her letter. Tatiana's distress, instead of awakening pity, merely increases his irritation.

Prince Gremin, a distant relative appears. He is in love with Tatiana, and Madame Larina hopes for a brilliant match, but Tatiana, troubled with own heart, hardly notices her kindly and elderly relation. Onegin, in his boredom, decides to provoke Lensky by flirting with Olga who lingtheadedly joins in his teasing. But Lensky takes the matter with passionate seriousness. He challenges Onegin to a duel.

Act II Scene II – The Dule

Tatiana and Olga try to reason with Lensky, but his high romantic ideals are shattered by the betrayal of his friend and the fickleness of his beloved; he insists that the duel take place. Onegin kills his friend and for the first time his cold heart is moved by the honor of his deed. Tatiana realizes that her love was an illusion, and that onegin is self-centered and empty.

Act III Scene I – St. Petersburg

Onegin, have traveled the world for many years in an attempt to escape from his own futility, returns to St. Petersburg where he is received at a ball in the palace of Prince Gremin. Gremin has recently married, and Onegin is astonished to recognize in the stately and elegant young princess, Tatiana, the uninteresting little country girl whom he once turned away. The enormity of his mistake and loss engulfs him. His life now seems even more aimless and empty.

Act III Scene II – Tatiana's Boudoir

Tatiana reads a letter from Onegin which reveals his love. Suddenly he stands before her impatient to know her answer. Tatiana sorrowfully tells him that although she still feels her passionate love of girlhood for him, she is now a woman, and that she could never find happiness with him or respect for him. She orders him to leave her forever.