Alexander Pushkin’s birthday

Today marks the 224th anniversary of the birth of the great writer and poet Alexander Pushkin whose work not only transformed the Russian language and literature but also largely determined the evolvement of the entire national culture.

In 2009, on the occasion of the 210th anniversary of Pushkin, Boris Eifman presented his choreographic version of the immortal novel in verse Eugene Onegin, boldly combining classics and modernity, works by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and rock music by composer Alexander Sitkovetsky.

“We tried to make our own philosophical analysis of Pushkin’s novel, transferring his heroes to the present. Tatyana Larina’s youth takes place in the 1990s, and her marriage and life of the “goddess of Palmyra of the North” fall on modern Russia. Pushkin wrote an anthology of Russian life of his time, created his own archetype of the character of the Russian person and the poetic image of the Russian soul. I was wondering how both the soul and the character of my compatriots have changed over the past two hundred years,” the choreographer says.

You can see the choreographic evocation of the novel on June 4, July 17 and 18 at the Alexandrinsky Theatre, and on July 27 at the Historic Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre. And today we invite you to watch a fragment from Boris Eifman’s screen ballet Eugene Onegin, the scene of Tatyana’s letter.