One of the opening shows for this year’s Spoleto Festival USA is Eugene Onegin, the Tchaikovsky opera based on a Pushkin novel.
Onegin stars 33-year old soprano Natalia Pavlova who trained at the Moscow Conservatory as a pianist with eyes on being a conductor before she was encouraged by a teacher to try singing.
The opera is a love story spanning years between Pavlova’s character Tatyana, who carries a flame for the title character Onegin, played by Franco Pomponi.
In her interview with Pavlova, Kinsey Gidick discusses Tatyana’s love for Eugene as the years pass:
“It’s a different type of love because she love him too. It’s difficult for her, but she can’t break his heart,” says Pavlova. And that’s the great tragedy of Tatyana’s life. She’s a woman torn between two men — one who broke her heart and one who made her famous. When Pavlova puts it that way, it looks less like a girl power opera and more like a telenovela, which is not a dig at the latter. In fact, I’d argue that that being the case, playing the role of Tatyana has to be even harder for Pavlova. Of course, as I come to find out, I’m wrong about that too.
On Wednesday, we got an early look at the performance at one of cast’s final dress rehearsals before tonight’s opening at the Gaillard Center.
In the clip below, we get a peek at one of the early interactions in Act I between Onegin and Tatyana.
Eugene Onegin has four performances starting tonight.
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