Tchaikovsky’s setting of Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” is this week’s Sunday Opera (9/22 3:00 p.m.) from the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The purposeless life led by Onegin causes him to be bored by everything. His flirting with Olga, his best friend Lensky’s fiancé, results in Lensky’s death, and his careless dismissal of Tatyana’s declaration of young love sets him on a path of doubt, remorse, and despair. Mariusz Kwiecien is Onegin, Ana Maria Martinez is Tatyana, Charles Castronovo is Lensky, and Alisa Kolosova is Olga.
The cast also includes Dmitry Belosselskiy as Prince Gremin, Katharine Goeldner as Mme. Larina, and Jill Grove as Filipyevna. We’ll have an afternoon filled with more music of Tchaikovsky when host Michael Kownacky continues with the Manfred Symphony which Tchaikovsky based on the poem by Lord Byron about another lost man who, this time, goes on an existential search to find himself.
