EDITIONS AND VERSIONS OF TCHAIKOVSKY'S OPERA EUGENE ONEGIN: TEXTUAL AND EDITORIAL PROBLEMS

Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin is the most performed Russian opera in the world. At the same time, the history of this work is hardly a simple one, and there is no modern scholarly-critical edition of this composition in existence today. There are two known original editions of this composition. The first one was published as a transcription for singing with piano in 1878, and the full score came out in 1880. It was this score which was first performed by students of the Moscow Conservatory at the Maly Theater on March 17, 1879. The second edition involved a number of changes made by Tchaikovsky for the performance of the opera on the Imperial stage, mainly for production at the Mariinsky Theater in 1885. The full score was published in 1891, and it was the last edition in the composer's lifetime. During the Soviet and post-Soviet periods both editions were never published separately, and the existent editions are for the most part are a mixture of all versions, which are almost impossible to discern or separate from each other. This article limits the focus of study to the key issues of preparing the opera Eugene Onegin for publication as part of the project 'PI Tchaikovsky Complete Works. Academic Edition.'