Forget everything you’ve ever heard about Tchaikovsky, (unless of course you’ve read my biographical novel, Fate.)
I will admit that accurate information about the composer, at least on certain internet sites, has actually improved of late. But while busily doing research about him between 2001 and 2009, I was very disheartened at the multitude of misinformation, deceitful lies, and lunatic theories that were out there. It was seemingly everywhere; in books, articles, movies, plays, and even in the printed programs at the theatre. I had to wade through all of it like a Venetian during acqua alta, and it wasn’t pleasant.
The theatre Playbills somehow affected me the most. There I was, out for an evening of Tchaikovsky, when I would see an article about him printed inside the program. I devoured such things before the curtain even rose and always with the enthusiasm of a wildly beating heart. Even American Ballet Theatre and the New York Philharmonic were guilty of misinformation. You can imagine how reading factual garbage about P. I. affected me. Sometimes I could barely enjoy the performance that followed because I was so upset. ABT and the NYPhil have now corrected most of the “errors” due to my unyielding perseverance (read: bitchy abhorrence about such things.)
Example. A Playbill article from the philharmonic actually stated in no uncertain terms that Tchaikovsky fought in a duel and then afterwards was inspired to compose his Eugene Onegin. WHAT?? Ummm, Tchaikovsky was never in a duel. And he definitely didn’t invent the story of Onegin; that was Aleksander Pushkin, who was in a duel… Obviously you have confused the two. How could such an error be made? Who was doing the researching and why, good heavens, was it being put into print for the supposed education and entertainment of audience members? Sheesh.
ABT was less guilty perhaps, stating for years in the historic info section of their Playbill (and on their website) that Petipa’s glorious ballet La Bayadère had premiered in 1875 at the Mariinsky Theatre. Wrong. The Mariinsky in those days was purely a venue for opera. La Bayadère premiered at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre. Merely an insignificant error that doesn’t matter? Not to me.
I could go on and on; the off-Broadway play about Tchaikovsky that had Pyotr and Bob only ten years apart in their ages so they could conveniently (and ridiculously) be linked romantically…or the lovely hardcover book which stated how Tchaikovsky saw the opera Carmen at the Palais Garnier (Paris Opera House) in 1875 – Before the Palais Garnier had even been built? Wow, amazing. And here I thought Carmen played at the Opera-Comique on rue Favart.
“What about sections of story-line in Fate which must have been fabricated, Ms. Dalton?” Fair enough. thanks for asking. Well, let’s just say there’s a difference between filling in unknown or intimately private periods of a person’s life and plain old incorrectness. And in my novel, the framework on which I hang the details of the story is an accurate one. That’s why it works.
The illustrious poet, Aleksander Pushkin (in black) about to duel.
Fate - The Tchaikovsky Novel 