Chorus of Act II (Eugene Onegin)

Tchaikovsky hesitated over the subject — Pushkin's verse novel offers almost no plot in the operatic sense — and called the result lyric scenes rather than an opera. He wrote Tatyana's letter scene first, in 1877, while receiving a declaration of love by post from a former student; the marriage that followed lasted weeks. Wanting no stars, he gave the work to the Moscow Conservatory, whose pupils performed it at the Maly Theatre on 29 March 1879 under Nikolai Rubinstein. The Bolshoi took it up two years later. Its real subject is timing: everything is said, always at the wrong moment.