'Eugene Onegin' examines love

A tale of unrequited love and regret will premiere this weekend at The IU Opera Theater. The opera season continues with a production of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Romantic masterpiece, "Eugene Onegin." "Onegin," based on Pushkin's celebrated poetic novel, is Tchaikovsky's sixth, but arguably best known, opera.\nEarly in the opera, we find Tatyana, a young country girl who has fallen for the cosmopolitan Eugene Onegin. Upon confessing her love for him, he rejects her -- and his own feelings -- and chooses instead to continue his life of lonely bachelorhood. Onegin does finally realize his true feelings for Tatyana, of course, but just in time to see she has already married another man.\nIt is generally established among scholars today that the story had a special personal appeal to the composer. In 1877, Tchaikovsky received a letter from a student, Antonia Ivanovna Milyukova, declaring her undying love for him. The composer responded with a proposal for marriage. They soon wed, though he admitted she was "a woman with whom I am not in the least in love," and with disastrous results. Their marriage lasted but nine weeks, and Tchaikovsky, after both a nervous breakdown and a suicide attempt, completed the opera the following year.\nThough Tchaikovsky composed 10 operas in all, "Onegin" is his most popular. According to the program notes found on the IU music school's Web site, "Onegin" is not a typical opera.\nAccording to the program notes, "'Onegin' is far from a traditional opera; indeed, as the composer himself takes pains to point out on the title page, it is not an 'opera' at all, but a collection of 'lyric scenes in three acts and seven scenes.'" \nDirecting this weekend's production and making his IU Opera Theater debut is guest director Yefim Maizel. Maizel, a native Russian, has directed throughout the U.S and Europe and is a faculty member at the Bay Area Summer Opera Training Institute.\n"What we love about Peter Tchaikovsky's music is its intense emotionality," Maizel said. "His work takes us through a musical world where we experience the depths of despair and the heights of ecstasy."\nMaizel hopes to explore the work's treatment of fate, its tragedy, and how it cannot be avoided. This is especially important in developing the title character.\n"It takes a tragedy and then years of soul searching for him to find again the best part of himself," Maizel said. "But when he is capable of understanding and appreciation of Tatyana, it is too late. This is the tragic irony of his story."\n"Eugene Onegin" will be performed at 8 p.m. on Oct. 22 and 23 as well as Oct. 29 and 30 at the Musical Arts Center. Those wishing to hear more from guest director Maizel may hear him speak about the opera an hour before each performance this weekend in the MAC lobby.