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From: Karen Mercedes
To: VOCALIST <vocalist>
Subject: Re: How old are these characters? - and a question about ages...
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

On Sun, 12 Dec 1999, Daniel Sumner wrote:

> Could somebody familiar with Prince Igor and Yevgeny Onegin please give me
> an idea of the supposed ages of the following characters, please:
> - Onegin

According to Vladimir Nabokov, who not only translated Pushkin's
verse-novel, but did extensive research and analysis of it (the novel has
many parallels to Puskin's own life, and the poet Lenski is, to a great
extent, Pushkin's own alter-ego), Onegin is 24 years old at the beginning
of the verse-novel (which opens in winter 1819, before the first scene of
the opera), and has already been living the life of a fashionable fop for
eight years, i.e., since age 16. The opera begins in June 1820, a month
after Onegin's arrival at his uncle's estate in the country (his rich
uncle being a neighbour of the Larins and the Lenskis, all of whom lived
in a region of grasslands and forests about 200 miles west of Moscow and
250 miles SSE of St. Petersburg where Pushkin himself spent 2 years
while composing the second canto of the novel). Lenski, by the way, is 18,
Olga is 16, there is no indication of Tatiana's age, only that she is
"the elder sister" and has neither Olga's beauty or "rosy freshness",
and that she appears like a changeling).

The ball in Act II of the opera takes place on Tatiana's
name-day, which would make it 12 January 1821 (with the Olga-Lenski
wedding scheduled for 15 or 16 January). And for anyone who ever wondered
what became of Olga after losing "My poor Lenski!", in the novel, she
marries a cavalry officer and leaves home, with Tatiana watching her
carriage recede into the distance, never to be heard from again.

The final act of the opera coincides with Onegin's visit to Tatiana in
Spring 1825, with Onegin 29 or 30; Tatiana married Prince N.
(Gremin in the opera) in 1822, having made his acquaintance during her
Moscow Season in the spring of that year. The final confrontation between
Onegin and Tatiana occurs in April 1825.


> - Prince Gremin
His age isn't exactly clear, except through implication. When Tatiana's
aunts first point Prince N. (Pushkin's designation - Tchaikovsky's
librettist seems to have renamed him Gremin) to their niece at a soiree in
St. Petersburg, Tatiana calls him "that fat general" - which may indicate
that he is somewhat older, though my knowledge of promotion through the
officer ranks in the Russian army at the time is lacking, so I don't know
how young a nobleman could be and attain the rank of general (one imagines
that Gremin fought in the wars against Napoleon at least).


Karen Mercedes
=====
There is delight in singing,
tho' none hear Beside the singer.
- Walter Savage Landor
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