Hello, I was wondering if anyone knows of a music recording of Cranko's ballet Eugene Onegin. All I can seem to find is the opera music, which was done by Tchaikovsky. Is the ballet music also Tchaikovsky? Thanks in advance for any replies!

Hello, Katiedoo - The music for Cranko's Onegin is indeed by Tchaikovsky, but was taken from a number of sources. Here's some information I found:

"Cranko’s first thought was to use music from Tchaikovsky’s opera Yevgeny Onegin, but Covent Garden and the Stuttgart Ballet both recoiled at the thought of turning an opera into a ballet. So his associate Karl-Heinz Stolze wove a score out of 'minor' Tchaikovsky. The act-one folk number is set to the 'Russian Dance' from the opera Vakula the Blacksmith (a/k/a The Slippers and The Caprices of Oksana); the party pieces of acts two and three — three waltzes (including a 5/8 number!), three polkas, a mazurka, and a polonaise — are drawn mostly from little-known piano works. The third-act pas de deux for Tatyana and her husband (here called Prince Gremin) is a pleasant bit of salon writing that improves in Stolze’s arrangement. The concluding pas de deux for Tatyana and Onegin is slyly drawn from Francesca da Rimini, Tchaikovsky’s tone poem celebrating the lady from Canto V of Dante’s Inferno who did betray her husband."

From another source:

"Although Onegin is set to the music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the renowned composer did not actually write the music for the ballet. Instead, the score is an amalgamation of Tchaikovsky compositions including Composition for Piano, Piano-Cycle Op.37, The Seasons, The Caprices of Oxana, and Francesca da Rimini.

You can listen to some of these pieces (e.g., The Seasons) at Tchaikovsky midi files. For the "lesser known piano pieces," you can try listening to all the piano pieces at this site and see if anything rings a bell.

I suppose you might try contacting the Boston Ballet or the National Ballet of Canada and asking which specific pieces are used.

Good luck!

Katiedoo, I saw the Stuttgart Ballet do "Onegin" here in California last year or the year before and I ordered the CD from Amazon, as I recall. I have it right in front of me.

"Onegin" with music by Tschaikovsky arrangement and orchestration by Kurt-Heinz Stolze. Staatsorchester Stuttgart conducted by James Tuggle. In the program notes, there is an introduction by Reid Anderson and many nice (but small) photos of the ballet with dancers Yseult Lendvai, Tamas Detrich, Elena Tentschikowa, Robert Tewsley, Sue Jin Kang, and others.

As for identification information, the CD says “Animato ACD 6048” and Bauer Studios 1999 and LC 05187.

That sounds like a better idea!

Boston Ballet sold the German CD at their shop during the "Onegin" run--I remember them saying it was an import and a bit tricky to find (but the web has made that much easier!) The music is a wonderful potpourri--I gave it to my daughter for Christmas.

Thanks so much for the informed replies! I will check Amazon...