Tatyana longs for a romantic love in the Russian province, about which she has so far only read in books, and thinks she has found the ideal partner in Eugen Onegin. But he abruptly rejects her. Only years later, when Tatyana is now married to Prince Gremin, does Onegin realise his mistake at the time.

In his most famous opera work from 1879, Peter Tchaikovsky holds up to us the fundamental conflicts of modern times: how emotional poverty and boredom can destroy genuine affection. Alexander Pushkin's 1833 verse novel Eugen Onegin tells of a group of young noblemen, of their desires, their arrogance, of devotion and rejection. But unlike Pushkin, who approaches his characters with cool calm and sometimes even irony, Tchaikovsky is all about complete identification: the gay composer lived through her painful struggle for love together with the female protagonist Tatyana. "Every opera theme appeals to me in which I find people like myself, who have feelings like I have and who I understand.