The Queen of Spades

Amid the glitter and majesty of Imperial St Petersburg, the young officer Herman cuts a melancholy figure. He’s newly in love, but without money he can’t hope to win his beloved Liza. And when Liza reveals that her grandmother, the Countess, knows a secret that will guarantee success at gambling, she sows the seeds of a deadly obsession—one that threatens life, happiness and Herman’s very soul. Tchaikovsky was initially reluctant to accept a commission for an opera based on Pushkin’s 1834 novella. But this tale of doomed love and a haunted outsider quickly captured his imagination, and he sketched The Queen of Spades (also known by the French name for that same playing card, Pique Dame) in just over a month in 1890. The result—a brooding psychological thriller with a supernatural sting in the tail—rivals Eugene Onegin (1879) as Tchaikovsky’s greatest opera. Herman is a true Byronic anti-hero, and a stirring role for a dramatic tenor, but Liza, too, is one of Tchaikovsky’s most touching heroines, and in the hands of a great singer (and actor) the ancient Countess, with her fatal secret, can be an unforgettable presence. It’s all set within a surging musical panorama of Russian high society in the age of Catherine the Great, with Tchaikovsky at the height of his powers, both as dramatist and as gloriously colourful storyteller.