Piotr Tchaïkovski’s Eugene Onegin, which premiered in Moscow in 1879, is based on Alexander Pushkin’s eponymous verse poem. The libretto, which was organised by the composer himself, closely follows certain passages in its source material and retains much of the poetry. Set in the 1820s in and around St Petersburg, it sees Tatyana, the daughter of landowner Madame Larina, fall in love with one Eugene Onegin. She is introduced to him when her sister Olga’s...

Così fan tutte of 1790 is the third and final opera (after Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni) on which Mozart collaborated with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Originally set in Naples, it sees the philosopher Don Alfonso challenge two soldiers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, to prove that their respective fiancées, the sisters Dorabella and Fiordiligi, are faithful. He is certain that no woman ever is, but the younger men are so convinced of their own lovers’...