Tchaikovsky (Almost) in Love

Book excerpt: Over ten years, and in thousands of letters, Tchaikovsky was immersed in a secret relationship with a musical confident and financial benefactor. Nadezhda von Meck, the wife of a wealthy engineer, became infatuated with Tchaikovsky’s music as well as the man himself. Meanwhile, She counseled him about how to get free of his wife of convenience. More importantly, Nadezhda gave him feedback on his works-in-progress and provided him with the space and financial security that allowed him to compose without distraction — until, one day, they finally met in the woods on her estate… and the letter exchanges ceased, for a time. It was a classical case of what might have been, in a different time. And Tchakovsky’s ambivance may well have inspired the under-current of sexual frustration in his love-torn opera Eugene Onegin. Tchaikovsky (Almost) in Love is a multimedia play about all that and more, written in a classic verse mode that recalls Shakespeare.