This is an infrequently heard though immensely important work in Prokofiev's catalog. It is infrequently encountered because the composer never orchestrated it or sought to promote it. It is of great importance because its themes were reused by Prokofiev in his operas War and Peace (1941-52) and Betrothal in a Monastery (1940), in his ballet Cinderella (1940-44), his Piano Sonata No. 8 (1939-44), and his Symphony No. 7 (1951-52). No other work in his œuvre served as a springboard for so many other important compositions.

In 1936, Prokofiev was commissioned to provide music for the drama Eugene Onegin, as well as for Boris Godunov and the film The Queen of Spades, all in anticipation of the 1937 centenary celebrations of Pushkin's death. All three productions failed to materialize, though Prokofiev had produced scores for them. In 1973, Soviet musicologist Elizabeth Dattel unearthed the manuscript and, aided by composer G. Zinger and following its notations regarding instrumentation, orchestrated it. They also added narration from Pushkin's text.

Three recordings appeared in the latter part of the twentieth century, two with narration and one without. The original score, for soprano and baritone soloists and orchestra, was comprised of 44 short numbers, but the pages containing Nos. 38, 39, and 40 were missing. Much of the music is melancholy and sparsely-scored, possibly because Prokofiev's instructions on instrumentation were short on detail or because he consciously strove to achieve a chamber-like scoring to accompany the play.

No. 3, "Lensky and Onegin," introduces a theme that Prokofiev reused in the very opening of the first scene (and elsewhere) in War and Peace. A sentimental melody used in the third movement of Prokofiev's Symphony No. 7 first appeared in No. 5 here, "Her name is Tatiana." In "Tatiana and her Nurse" (No. 9) another, though less prominent, theme used in War and Peace, is heard. To conclude the most significant theme associations, No. 26, Waltz, is reused in War and Peace, and here performed by a harpsichord in a most attractive rendition. No. 28, Menuet, would provide the main theme in the second movement of Prokofiev's Eighth Piano Sonata. No. 41, "The Meeting of Onegin and Tatiana in St. Petersburg," contains Cinderella's love theme, the most important and prominent melody in the Cinderella ballet. The latter part of this theme in the Onegin version has a little turn, giving it a lighter feel, whereas in the ballet, the melody dispenses with the turn, having a more Romantic character and more subtle harmonies.

© Robert Cummings, All Music Guide