Baby Name Trend Starter: At the time of novel's creation, the name "Tatyana", as with many other Russian names of Greek etymology, was considered old-fashioned and lower-class. Eugene Onegin's success catapulted the name of its heroine into a popularity that hasn't waned ever since in Russia.
Life Imitates Art: The circumstances of Lensky's death are eerily similar to those of the author's own: both are poets who got shot in a duel with a man who tried to seduce their beloved (fiancée, in Lensky's case, and wife, in Pushkin's case).
Tchaikovsky's opera:
All-Star Cast: As Onegin, Tatyana, Lensky, Olga, and Gremin...
Audio Recordings:
1956, conducted by Boris Khaikin: Yevgeniy Belov, Galina Vishnevskaya, Sergey Lemeshev, Larissa Avdeyeva, Ivan Petrov.
1974, conducted by Georg Solti: Bernd Weikl, Teresa Kubiak, Stuart Burrows, Julia Hamari, Nicolai Ghiaurov,
1987, conducted by James Levine: Thomas Allen, Mirella Freni, Neil Shicoff, Anne Sofie von Otter, Paata Burchuladze.
1993, conducted by Semyon Bychkov: Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Nuccia Focile, Neil Shicoff, Olga Borodina, Alexander Anisimov.
Video Productions:
2007, conducted by Valery Gergiev at the Met Opera: Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Renée Fleming, Ramón Vargas, Elena Zaremba, Sergei Aleksashkin.
2011, conducted by Omer Meir Wellber at the Palau de les Arts Valencia: Artur Rucinski, Kristine Opolais, Dmitri Korchak, Lena Belkina, Günther Groissböck.
2013, conducted by Robin Ticciati at the Royal Opera House: Simon Keenlyside, Krassimira Stoyanova, Pavol Breslik, Elena Maximova, Peter Rose.
2013, again conducted by Valery Gergiev at the Met Opera: Mariusz Kwiecien, Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczala, Oksana Volkova, Alexei Tanovitsky.
Dawson Casting: Tatyana Larina is supposed to be seventeen-years-old in Acts I and II, but good luck finding an actual seventeen-year-old with the vocal heft to be able to sing her. Likewise, Olga is supposed to be fifteen, but most mezzo-sopranos who sing her are definitely not fifteen-years-old.
Romance on the Set: French-Canadian baritone Étienne Dupuis met Australian soprano Nicole Car during performances of this opera at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2015, and they got married some time after that.
