LONG BEACH OPERA ‘ONEGIN’ TO BE STARK AND LONELY

Long Beach Opera General Director Michael Milenski knows that many opera lovers would not include Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” among their top 10.

“We’ve received ticket orders for ‘Eugene Oregon’ and ‘Eugene O’Neill,’ ” says Milenski, who is presenting a new English-language staging of the tale of unrequited love, with Richard Stilwell in the title role, Saturday at the Terrace Theater and again Feb. 22 in Pasadena Civic Auditorium (plus a performance Feb. 19 in Palm Springs).

However, soprano Kathryn Bouleyn, who sings Tatiana, regrets this unfamiliarity.

“If I had to take someone to their first opera, it would be this one,” she says. “The experiences are very real. People today can relate very deeply and be moved. Who, for instance, hasn’t written a letter professing undying love, then been rejected?”

Still, Bouleyn says, audiences seem slow to respond to Tchaikovsky’s operas. Director Christopher Alden blames the composer: “He did himself a great disservice, PR-wise. The self-critical things he wrote have all been taken at face value, and I just don’t buy that.”

Will this production be a wild resetting of the story, as was the case with the last Alden-Long Beach collaboration, “The Coronation of Poppea”? Not exactly, Alden replies.

“ ‘Onegin’ will be set in the Boring ‘20s--the 1820s,” he jokes. “It’s a fascinating period, actually. The production will have a surreal aspect visually, although it is definitely set in the original period. The sets will be very stark. For instance, in Tatiana’s ‘Letter Scene,’ the only furniture in her huge bedroom will be a single bed. We’ll be emphasizing the loneliness theme.”

That’s just fine with Bouleyn, who will have the stage very much to herself for that pivotal scene. “I tend toward minimal work,” she notes. “Both Christopher and John Copley (director of the Ottawa production) are interested in psychological drama, and that’s good for me as an actress.” Bouleyn, incidentally, will repeat her role in the San Diego Opera production of Copley’s “Onegin” next season.

SCHNITTKE, BEETHOVEN--TOGETHER AGAIN: The last time violinist Gidon Kremer played at the Music Center, his solo vehicle with the Los Angeles Philharmonic was Beethoven’s Concerto, during which he turned a few heads around with rather bizarre cadenzas by Alfred Schnittke.

This week, when Kremer returns to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, he will play an entire concerto by the 50-year-old Soviet composer. Wednesday through Sunday, Kremer, with Guenther Herbig on the podium, will play the West Coast premiere of Schnittke’s Concerto No. 3. The work, composed in 1978 (he has since written a fourth concerto), is scored for chamber-size orchestra.

Also on the agenda is Bach’s Orchestra Suite No. 1 (Weber’s “Oberon” overture will be substituted at the Wednesday concert) and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4.

The aforementioned concerto by Beethoven will serve as the concluding work in a benefit concert at the Pavilion Tuesday night at 8, when violinist Issac Stern joins with Herbig and the Philharmonic to aid both the orchestra’s pension fund and the University of Judaism. In addition to the Beethoven, Stern will play Mozart’s G-major Concerto. Weber’s “Oberon” overture completes the agenda.

PEOPLE: Pulitzer Prize winner Charles Wuorinen has been named composer-in-residence with the San Francisco Symphony for two years, beginning with the 1985-86 season. Wuorinen succeeds John Adams, who will return to full-time composition, according to an orchestra spokesman. Among his chores, Wuorinen will conduct the orchestra’s New and Unusual Music series and make repertory recommendations to music director-designate Herbert Blomstedt. Wuorinen’s appointment is Blomstedt’s first official act in his new post.

Myung-Whun Chung, a former conducting assistant and associate with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will make his Boston Symphony podium debut Feb. 21.