# Who Here Has Seen ONEGIN?



## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

I'm thinking of checking out the movie ONEGIN with Ralph Fiennes in the title role. Has anyone here seen this movie? If so, I am curious to know how closely its storyline resembles that of Tchaikovsky's EUGENE ONEGIN. Also, how would you rate the production and the acting? Any impressions are welcome.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> I'm thinking of checking out the movie ONEGIN with Ralph Fiennes in the title role. Has anyone here seen this movie? If so, I am curious to know how closely its storyline resembles that of Tchaikovsky's EUGENE ONEGIN. Also, how would you rate the production and the acting? Any impressions are welcome.


I didn't see it myself but a friend of mine bought it because he had read raving reviews
And as far as I know the story is following the opera route :tiphat:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119079/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_52


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I prefer two gins myself...

N.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

Not to be pedantic (translation: I'm about to get pedantic) but it's Alexander Pushkin's _Eugene Onegin_. Tchaikovsky set select scenes from the Pushkin's 'novel in verse', and seems to have done he did so quite faithfully. I only mention it because, if you are interested in a deeper understanding of the opera, I can highly recommend the Penguin Classics translation by Stanley Maxwell. Believe me, I'm not one to go in for epic Russian poems, but the way Maxwell holds to Pushkin's rhyme scheme makes for a uniquely satisfying read and probably gives a sense of Pushkin's own wordplay, probably better than any film could. Plus it's a manageable 200 pages.


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

I've seen the opera. It's pretty damn good. But if Ralph Fiennes was in it, he wasn't singing.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Steatopygous said:


> I've seen the opera. It's pretty damn good. But if Ralph Fiennes was in it, he wasn't singing.


He _can_ sing, though! (Check out PRINCE OF EGYPT.)

Anyway, I was referring in my original post to the 1999 movie version of the Pushkin story.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

a poor film

avoid


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

stomanek said:


> a poor film
> 
> avoid


Why is it poor? Can you explain?


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Bellinilover said:


> Why is it poor? Can you explain?


Utterly unconvincing performances.
I wasnt moved by it.
I tend not to like western attempts to do Russian adaptations - I loathe the BBCs war and peace for example - if you compare it with Bondarchuk's masterpiece made in the 60s - you will see what I mean.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

We've got the DVD with the addition of 'the making of', which is interesting how they filmed the Neva scenery in ice and snow. The film is quite OK, when you accept the British atmosphere like in 'War and Peace'.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I've seen it three times-twice at the Met; once on PBS broadcast of a Met performance.

Not my glass of tea.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

hpowders said:


> Not my glass of tea.


Thank you for your enriching input.

Does watching it on TV count? I saw the well-known Met performance of it a number of years ago, Hvorostovsky and Fleming in the title roles. I was struck at the use of irony in the production. The polonaise serves as funeral march for Lensky? Disturbing indeed!


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

hpowders said:


> I've seen it three times-twice at the Met; once on PBS broadcast of a Met performance.
> 
> Not my glass of tea.


Oh, I've seen the _opera_ in several different productions and love it. What I'm interested in knowing is if the _movie_ ONEGIN -- and by that I mean the 1999 British movie of the Pushkin tale, with Ralph Fiennes as Onegin and Toby Stephens as Lensky -- follows the opera's plot, or if it adds or subtracts things. I also wanted to know what people thought of the acting. While I'm not uninterested in people's opinions of the opera EUGENE ONEGIN, discussing it wasn't meant to be the main point of this thread.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Oh nuts! Now I can't get Tatiana's Letter Scene out of my head. The horn never stops.

Dang power of suggestion!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> I'm thinking of checking out the movie ONEGIN with Ralph Fiennes in the title role. Has anyone here seen this movie? If so, I am curious to know how closely its storyline resembles that of Tchaikovsky's EUGENE ONEGIN. Also, how would you rate the production and the acting? Any impressions are welcome.


I have borrowed it from a fried who has it (as I told in my previous post ) report to you later :tiphat:


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Pugg said:


> I have borrowed it from a fried who has it (as I told in my previous post ) report to you later :tiphat:


I don't guess we ever got the report back since Pugg is no longer here. Oh well.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Where IS Pugg? Is everything ok?


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## RockyIII (Jan 21, 2019)

I haven't seen the movie, but I like the opera and saw it performed live a couple of years ago at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. The tragic story is easy to follow and perhaps more relatable to real life than some (many?) other operas.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

nina foresti said:


> Where IS Pugg? Is everything ok?


Someone thought he was reincarnated here but I have yet to confirm such. Just look for anyone excited about Renee Fleming and it may be Pugg.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I've seen it staged at least twice, most memorably in a production for Welsh National Opera by Andrei Serban, who directed the Royal Opera's famous staging of *Turandot*.

I've also seen a film and listened to quite a few different recordings, the best of which remains for me (and many others) the old Melodiya Khaikin set, with the young Vishnevskaya as an ideal Tatyana. There is something just so intrinsically right about Khaikin's conducting in every bar. True, there are better recorded versions out there, but none that so brilliantly captures the opera's Russian heart.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

One thing that strikes me is in this DVD, Lenski just before being shot looks like he had decided to forgive Eugene, motions with his arm and smiles, immediately before being shot down. It adds an even more tragic twist, but I wonder if that is part of the story. I know they talked about walking away from it but decided to go through with it but this was an instant before the bullet.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Fritz Kobus said:


> One thing that strikes me is in this DVD, Lenski just before being shot looks like he had decided to forgive Eugene, motions with his arm and smiles, immediately before being shot down. It adds an even more tragic twist, but I wonder if that is part of the story. I know they talked about walking away from it but decided to go through with it but this was an instant before the bullet.


I think that's just one director's idea of how to play the scene. In one of the productions I've seen, Lensky just turns round and doesn't raise his gun. Both are valid. In some ways I prefer the latter. Lensky is so much the romantic dreamer and pessimist. It's not such a stretch to think he might, by this time in the plot anyway, have had a death wish. It was a very Romantic stance. Think of Goethe's Werther.


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

I call this movie The Bad Romance of Arwen and Lord Voldemort. (There is also Cersei and pirate guy from Black Sails.)

It's decent, but just so... un-Russian. I first saw the ROH version which was a terrible first choice, then this movie which still didn't convince me about the whole romance. It took the Carsen prod with the absolutely radiant Renée/Dima pairing to be finally swept away.


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