This week I devoted an entire podcast episode to one of my favorite novels, Eugene Onegin.  Though I only mentioned it in passing, I also watched Onegin, the 1999 adaptation, after reading the book.

Liv Tyler was brilliantly cast as the bookish Tatyana; this was just before she became famous for Arwen in The Lord of the Rings.  Ralph Fiennes is a good 10 years older than the title character, but he does a decent job at the Byronic Onegin.  Personally, I found the script to be underwhelming and disappointing – too pedestrian (and stylistically British) to really capture the essence of Pushkin’s Russia ca. 1830.  It’s too bad, given the cast.

That said, I do like the script’s translation of this scene from the book.  Tatyana, having professed her love in a letter, must sit through an awkward heart-to-heart from a disinterested Onegin.  While Tchaikovsky’s opera infuses this scene with soaring melodies – leading you to think Onegin likes her after all – Fiennes’s cool, polite delivery seems more realistic and makes Tatyana’s nervousness all the more real.

This is the same scene in the opera, in case you didn’t get enough (and because I love it so much).  Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien is my favorite portrayal of Onegin: