Newsletter January 2004

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Fatal Rendezvous by Bert Gedin

Where our hedonistic hero, Onegin, settles a dispute, with a very dear friend, Lensky, over one who "shines like a star in the dark night", 17-year-old Olga. He, Onegin, "wins" the gentleman's duel, but reality is eventually none too kind to him - Tatiana (with whom he eventually realises he is in love) already belongs to another, less romantic, perhaps, but a very steadfast liason indeed. This poignant love story, we are told, "is the decline of Imperial Russia sliding, eventually, into a people's revolution." 'Eugene Onegin', not unlike certain other pre-20th Century Russian creations, is an "artistically rich work in words and music .... a telling social commentary on aristocratic Russia before the revolution." Even Lenin would have said 'amen' to that.