While art often imitates life, people's lives are shaped by art.

John Cranko was once described as a 'veritable walking oxymoron' and a 'gregarious loner'. As a choreographer, Cranko died perilously young for his reputation at 46, when many choreographers have their best work ahead of them.

Pushkin's notable verse-novel is presented with an ethereal beauty as Cranko's three-act ballet Onegin returns this season to the Royal Ballet repertory at Covent Garden.

The 19th century Russian author Aleksandr Pushkin (b.1799 -1837) has often been considered the greatest poet and founder of modern Russian literature. He was the first to use everyday speech in his poetry. Pushkin's contemporaries were Byron (d.1824) and Goethe (d.1832), but his ironic attitude can be connected to the literature of the 18th century, especially that of Voltaire.

Alina Cojocaru as Tatiana and Johan Kobborg as Onegin (Photo: Dee Conway)

While in exile in 1820 because of his political poems, among them Ode to Liberty, Pushkin started his major masterpiece, Eugene Onegin.

The main theme of Onegin is the relationship between fiction and real life. The romantic sister, Tatiana, is reading a romance novel when her mother tells her real life is not like that. The work is packed with allusions to other literary works and most of the other main characters have been influenced and have personalities shaped by, or modelled on, different works of literature.

Eugene Onegin is a middle-class Russian aspiring to greater things. Life is dull and tedious, lacking stimuli, until he inherits a country mansion from his uncle. So he moves to the country striking up an unlikely friendship with a minor poet, Vladimir Lensky. Lensky invites Onegin to dine with his fiancé Olga Larina and her family. Olga's bookish and somewhat countrified sister, Tatiana (Tanya), falls in love with Onegin. Tatiana writes a letter to Onegin professing her love and sends it to him. This is something a heroine in one of Tatiana's French novels would have done, but within Russian society would have been seen as avant-garde and without a doubt precocious. To the consternation of Tatiana, Onegin does not reply. The two meet on his next visit where he rejects her advances in a speech that reflects his insecurities.

In the ensuing year Lensky invites Onegin to Tatiana's birthday party, with a plausible tale that it is a simple family affair. But on arrival Onegin is greeted by an opulence resembling a state banquet. As a sign of revenge and self gratification, Onegin proceeds to flirt and dance with Olga. In a heightened rage Lensky storms out, and come morning issues a challenge. A duel is fought and Onegin flees triumphantly.

Time passes and Tanya is judiciously escorted to Moscow to be introduced to society. In this new environment Tanya matures to such a level that when Onegin returns to Moscow he fails to recognize her. On realizing who she is, he vainly attempts to win her affection, despite the fact that she is now married, only to be ignored. He writes her a letter and receives no reply. The book ends when Onegin manages to see Tanya and is once more rejected in a speech befitting his behaviour.

Here lie the concomitant circumstances.

The Arbat Monument to Pushkin and his wife.

Destiny beckoned in 1829 when Pushkin fell in love with 16-year-old Natalya Nikolayevna Goncharova, whom he married two years later. Her family was as impoverished as Pushkin's, but she become a beauty of the Imperial court. The marriage was wretched, giving Pushkin little time for creative thought. His wife was invited to every court ball. Her frivolous social life and Pushkin's inveterate gambling lead to debt and eventually to his untimely death. The gossip of an affair between Baron Georges d'Anthês and his wife started to spread. An anonymous note informed Pushkin that he had been elected to "The Serene Order of Cuckolds". Although d'Anthês was married to Natalya's sister, the scandal was not quite over.

Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthês

In an effort to defend his wife's honour Pushkin commands a duel with dd'Anthês.

Pushkin is mortally wounded in the stomach and dies from that first pistol shot. Stripped of his rank d'Anthês is promptly expelled from Russia and dies in exile, possibly the most cursed character in Russian literature.

Eugene Onegin - last performance
Main Stage (7.30pm), Thursday 12 April 2007
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London WC2
Box Office - 48 Floral Street, London WC2