An opera in three acts with music by the Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (b. Votkinsk, Russia, 1840; d. St Petersburg, 1893) and libretto by Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the composer’s brother. It is based on the homonymous poem by Alexander Pushkin (1833).
In fortune-telling with cards, the Queen of spades symbolises tragic fate and bad luck. In the French deck of cards, this card does not bode well for the future if it appears on the table during a card reading session, something that Alexander Pushkin was well aware of when he wrote the novel The Queen of Spades.
The Queen of Spades (Пиковая Дама), Tchaikovsky’s best known opera together with Eugenio Onegin, was premiered to great success on 7 December 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. There was a time when the French version was often performed, with the title La dame de pique, but more recently it has usually been performed in the original Russian version.
In ingenious ways, Tchaikovsky includes fantastical and supernatural elements in the opera (these were very evident in Russian literature and art of the time). We can also see – following the style of French opera in this period – scenes of city life and of the Imperial Court of St Petersburg at the end of the 18th century, with clear references to the music of the era, as well as to Russian popular and religious music.
The story takes place in Russia in the 19th century and revolves around Hermann, an army official who is madly in love at the start of the drama, but is blinded by ambition by the end. Hermann confesses to his friend, Count Tomsky, that he is utterly besotted with a mysterious young woman whose name he does not know, but he also thinks that this woman is unattainable for him: she is of a higher social class and in the Czarist Russia of the time such a union would have been unthinkable. When Hermann sees the young woman (Liza) accompanied by her grandmother, the old Countess known as The Queen of Spades, Hermann realises all too well that if he is to gain the right to court the woman he loves, he will have to become rich. He decides that the best way to do this is by discovering the secret of the three cards of fortune – a secret guarded by the Countess on pain of death – which would make him a powerful figure, enabling him to court Liza. Fascinated by the story of the three cards, Hermann swears to capture Liza’s heart. However, his adoration is gradually transformed into greed. Hermann becomes obsessed with the secret of the three cards, and his stubbornness makes him unable to reason clearly. He has already gained Liza’s love, but he wants more. Determined to discover the secret, he sacrifices his career, Liza’s love, the Countess’s life and, finally, even his own.
