Saw the Tchaikovsky opera on TV recently. I thought the story was surprisingly slim for an opera (boy meets girl, boy loses girl), so I Googled and learned that it was written as a novel in verse form of almost 400 fourteen-line sonnets. So the reason for the story’s longevity is basically that it is a poetic feat (almost said ‘feet’) in Russian but of not much interest otherwise. (The opera’s famous waltz and polonaise are lovely though.)
Saw the Tchaikovsky opera on TV recently. I thought the story was surprisingly slim for an opera (boy meets girl, boy loses girl), so I Googled and learned that it was written as a novel in verse form of almost 400 fourteen-line sonnets. So the reason for the story’s longevity is basically that it is a poetic feat (almost said ‘feet’) in Russian but of not much interest otherwise. (The opera’s famous waltz and polonaise are lovely though.)