Enamoured with an unknown lady, a young soldier discovers that her grandmother holds a secret to win at cards. Although his beloved requites his love, happiness slips out of reach when his obsession with the powerful secret drives him to madness. Set in imperial Russia, Tchaikovsky’s late brooding thriller about a fanatic gambler is a tour de force of stirring melancholy, consuming passion and grand sweeping orchestration. If the opera saw the light of day thanks to his brother, the librettist Modest Tchaikovsky, The Queen of Spades soon became Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky’s personal obsession: composed in only 44 days, he considered it a masterpiece.
When a power vacuum opens up in Tsarist Russia, a ruthlessly ambitious prince conspires with the Streltsy militia and the schismatic Old Believers to usurp the throne. Based on real life events surrounding the Moscow Uprising of 1682, Mussorgsky’s political thriller is a powerful portrayal of a country in crisis. This 2015 production by Moscow State Stanislavsky Music Theatre uses Shostakovich's orchestration with a finale by Vladimir Kobekin.
