“Eugene Onegin” by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and “Rusalka” by Alexander Dargomyzhsky: Dramaturgical Parallels
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Keywords: Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky, Nikolay D. Kashkin, Alexander S. Dargomyzhsky, Aleksandеr S. Pushkin, “Eugene Onegin”, “Rusalka”, scenario, libretto, composition and dramaturgy of the opera, idea of happiness.
Author: Vladimir V. Goryachikh
About the author
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4209-7771
SPIN-код: 7014-8054
e-mail: goryachih@mail.ru
PhD (Arts, 1999), Associate Professor at the Music Theory Department at the Saint Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory
2 liter A Glinki St., St. Petersburg 190068, Russia
Associate Professor at the History of West-European and Russian Culture at the Institute of History at the Saint Petersburg State University
5 Mendeleevskaya liniya, St. Petersburg 199034, Russia
Submitted on: 28.01.2020
Published on: 15.05.2020
Abstract
The article represents the first attempt in Russian musicology to explore dramaturgical parallels between the operas “Eugene Onegin” by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and “Rusalka” by Alexander Dargomyzhsky from the point of view of the plot, main characters images, libretto dramaturgy, and musical composition. The details provided include littleknown information on Tchaikovsky's attitude to “Rusalka”. Dramaturgical intersections of Dargomyzhsky’s opera with Alexander Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”, which, in turn, could attract Tchaikovsky’s attention at the first stage of composing the opera, are considered. In this regard, the history of creation of the initial scenario of “Eugene Onegin” and participation of the music critic Nikolay Kashkin therein are carefully reconstructed, details of the composer’s private life being addressed. A hypothesis is proposed about a possible influence of Dargomyzhsky’s “Rusalka” on the dramaturgic idea of the Tchaikovsky’s opera, revealing a number of parallels in the plot and situational parallels between the two operas. The dramaturgy and compositional scheme of the first two acts of “Rusalka” and “Eugene Onegin” are consistently compared, including the development of the conflict; the techniques of reprise and inversion in relation to the first act are discovered, which unify the third act of the Tchaikovsky’s opera and the fourth act of the Dargomyzhsky’s opera. Two interrelated ideas in the dramaturgy of the both operas are considered as the denouement: it is impossible to replace happiness and it is impossible to return lost happiness.
Works Cited
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For citation: Goryachikh, Vladimir V. “ ‘Eugene Onegin’ by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and ‘Rusalka’ by Alexander Dargomyzhsky: Dramaturgical Parallels.” In Opera musicologica, vol. 12, no. 2 (2020), pp. 6–24 (in Russian).
DOI: 10.26156/OM.2020.12.2.001.