Brilliant late-Romantic Russian composer <strong>Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky</strong> often based his works on Western literature, like Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, and <em> Sleeping </em><em>Beauty</em>; but for this opera, he chose to follow something closer to home: a novel in verse written by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. The story tells of the romantic tribulations of an arrogant Saint Petersburg dandy. The opera's libretto, written by Konstantin Shilovsky, follows closely many of Pushkin's passages and retains much of the original poetry. Originally performed in Moscow in 1879, <em>Eugene Onegin</em> is now one of the best known and most frequently performed operas in the world. At the <strong>Grand Theatre</strong> in Łódź, the performance will be directed by Wojciech Rodek and Paweł Szkotak.