For all the ups and downs of his career thus far, at the time of the premiere of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades the 50-year-old composer enjoyed both significant respect and no little celebrity. Championed by Tsar Alexander III, Tchaikovsky used his standing to promote Russian music at home and abroad, where he was increasingly in demand.
Though the perpetually hard-to-please critics were sniffy about his Fifth Symphony at its premiere in August 1888, the public largely gave it a warmer reception. Five years later, in October 1993, the enthusiastically greeted premiere of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony would precede his death by just nine days.
Here, we tell the story of how Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades came to be. Plus, we list some of the best – and worst – recordings of the opera. We also suggest a few operas you might want to listen to if you're hungering for more in the Queen of Spades soundworld.
- Tchaikovsky features in our list of the greatest opera composers of all time
How Tchaikovsky came to write The Queen of Spades
Following his death in a duel at just 37 years old in 1837, Alexander Pushkin quickly became – and has remained – a cornerstone of Russian literature. Among the various composers subsequently inspired by his poems, plays and novels was Tchaikovsky. He went on to base three operas on Pushkin’s works. These included Evgeny Onegin (1879), Mazeppa (1884) and The Queen of Spades (1890).
Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades is based on a short story which tells a haunted - and haunting - tale. It was published in 1834 and came in at just 10,000 words long.
Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades: a haunting tale of ghosts, card games and mental illness
The Queen of Spades tells the story of young outsider army officer Hermann, who becomes obsessed by the rumour that an elderly Countess holds the secret to winning at cards. He gains admittance to the old lady’s bedroom through a half-hearted interest in her lonely granddaughter Lisa. In doing so, Hermann frightens the Countess to death.
When she reluctantly appears to him as a ghost, she gives him – on condition that he marry Lisa – the secret formula: three, seven, ace. Unfortunately, Hermann abandons Lisa. The last of the three cards ruins him by turning out to be… the Queen of Spades.
In making their adaptation, Tchaikovsky and his librettist brother Modest understood as cultured Russians that Pushkin’s original was already a literary classic. Their version is accordingly broadly faithful to this respected source. They nevertheless expanded the original as well as altering the ending.
In Pushkin's version, Hermann is consigned to a mental hospital. In the opera, meanwhile, he stabs himself to death. They also added to the narrative Prince Yeletsky, Lisa’s wealthy (though ultimately rejected) fiancé.
Tchaikovsky went abroad – in this case to Florence – to compose this major piece for St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, a task which took him just 44 days between 30 January and 14 March 1890 in what must have been an overwhelming burst of concentrated inspiration and sheer hard work. The orchestration followed, completed by June of that year. Both during the creative process and afterwards, Tchaikovsky regarded the result as his greatest single achievement.
The premiere: a husband-and-wife dream team
The Queen of Spades premiered at the Mariinsky in December that same year, with Eduard Nápravník conducting. In the crucial roles of Hermann and Lisa was the remarkable husband-and-wife team of lyric tenor Nikolay Figner and soprano Medea Mei-Figner (the latter Italian-born and trained), both hugely admired singing actors who in 1901 would record extracts from their creator roles with piano accompaniment.
The opera proved an instant success and soon began a slow but steady progress around major international stages. It would, eventually, become the second most frequently performed of Tchaikovsky’s lyric works after Evgeny Onegin.
Tchaikovsky's opera presents some intriguing anomalies
The opera is set in St Petersburg at the close of the 18th century, when Catherine the Great was on the throne (1762-96). One of the opera’s most obvious additions to Pushkin's original is the large-scale divertissement in the second act when wealthy guests at a private house are entertained by the pastoral The Faithful Shepherdess: this allows Tchaikovsky to indulge in a pastiche of his beloved Mozart.
In the scene’s final bars, the Empress herself is hailed by the guests just before her (unseen) arrival. One of this episode’s dramatic functions is to show the impecunious Hermann the wealthy lifestyle which his hoped-for win at the gambling tables would automatically guarantee him.
Anomalies exist within the opera regarding time. How old is the aged Countess who holds the secret of the cards? She supposedly learned it during her glamorous youth in Paris many decades earlier. However, the opera from which she recalls and sings an extract in her bedroom is a recent one – Grétry’s Richard Coeur-de-Lion (1784) was premiered within just a few years of the period when The Queen of Spades is set.
Meanwhile, the pastiche duet and parlour song sung by Lisa and Pauline in the opera’s second scene both set lyrics dating from the first decade of the 19th century – some years after the timescale of the opera itself!
Tchaikovsky's response to Pushkin's protagonist, Hermann
More important than such discrepancies, though, is the heady late-Romantic style with which Tchaikovsky clothes a piece that looks forward to 20th-century notions of obsession and mental illness, with the composer identifying musically with each of his characters in turn – most obviously with the increasingly unhinged Hermann.
The composer was profoundly moved by his unhappy protagonist’s fate. ‘When I arrived at the death of Hermann and the final chorus,’ Tchaikovsky subsequently wrote, ‘I was overcome with such pity for Hermann that I began to weep bitterly. This crying lasted for a terribly long time … Later I thought about the reason for this, since I’ve never before broken into tears over the fate of one of my heroes.
Queen of Spades looks forward to 20th-century notions of obsession and mental illness
'It seems to me that he was with me all the time like a real living person … I felt the deepest sympathy for his misfortune. Now I believe that this intimate, warm feeling for the opera’s hero is reflected in the music very much to its advantage.’
Exemplifying, meanwhile, Hermann’s fixation with the particular numbers of the fateful cards, the opera is constructed in three acts with a total of seven scenes, while important thematic elements use either three or seven notes.
Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades: the best recording
Valery Gergiev (conductor)
Gegam Grigorian (Hermann) et al; Kirov Opera
Decca 438 1412
This performance was recorded live in 1992 in the very theatre where Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades was premiered. Of all European traditions, the Russians – largely, of course, as a consequence of long-term artistic isolation following the 1917 Revolution – have held on most tightly to their national musical attributes and sense of style.
There are obvious advantages when a Russian ensemble presents a Russian opera, not only with respect to Slavic vocal qualities and an intimate relationship with the text. From the opening scene of this Kirov account onwards, the listener experiences an authentically Russian set of colours in terms of choral sound, an orchestra of ideal range and quality, and even a boys’ chorus that provides precisely the raw vitality required.
All of these elements place Valery Gergiev’s interpretation in a special category. Equally, it benefits from a company made up of an ensemble of artists who have performed the work together regularly. Gergiev’s conducting is invariably exciting, capturing impressively the work’s extraordinary diversity of mood.
Standout soloists in this great recording of Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades
Turning to the principals, Gegam Grigorian presents a dynamic Hermann in a thrillingly sung reading founded on firm and beautiful tone, and full of feeling. His is an introverted view of the character, but also something of a slow burn, Hermann’s card-obsessed psychosis only gradually kicking in.
Grigorian also maintains vocal and musical control even as the mentally vulnerable individual falls steadily apart psychologically. At the end, incidentally, and matching the associated Kirov stage production (available on DVD), this Hermann shoots rather than stabs himself.
In a similar manner to Grigorian, Maria Guleghina’s Lisa begins in a contained manner, almost imperceptibly giving in to her self-destructive instincts while retaining an aptly refined lyricism: desperation only enters into the picture in the penultimate scene, at the close of which her belief in Hermann’s love for her has vanished and she commits suicide.
Irina Arkhipova brings a certain hauteur to the Countess – quite rightly, there is no sense of caricature – and to the enriched lyricism of his Yeletsky, Vladimir Chernov adds a touch of melancholy, appropriate in this of all operas. Nikolai Putilin is an excellent Tomsky and there is strong casting in smaller roles, most notably Olga Borodina’s Pauline. The result is a distinguished ensemble achievement.
Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades: three more best recordings
Vladimir Fedoseyev (conductor)
Pan Classics PC10430
A deeply unsettling live performance of Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades from 1989 once again possesses a high degree of authenticity. Vitaly Tarashchenko’s melancholy Hermann rises to the major vocal challenges with authority, while Natalia Datsko’s Lisa is suffused with barely contained passion. Arkhipova is once again the commanding Countess: a grande dame who expects to be treated as such. In refulgent voice, Dmitri Hvorostovsky is a top-quality Yeletsky, and Grigory Gritsyuk’s large-scale Tomsky bursts with character.
Alexander Melik-Pashaev (conductor)
Naxos 9.81055-57
Though compromised by its period (1950) sound, an earlier echt-Russian account is notable for Alexander Melik-Pashaev’s powerful conducting. His Bolshoi forces provide bags of colour and character. Even if his tone is not in itself especially beautiful, Georgi Nelepp’s Hermann offers considerable variety.
Evgeniya Smolenskaya conveys Lisa’s disturbed nature, while Evgenia Verbitskaya’s Countess maintains a big personality and an entirely viable voice. Pavel Lisitsian’s Yeletsky is sung with exceptional beauty while Aleksey Petrovich Ivanov’s Tomsky is an effective presence.
Mariss Jansons (conductor)
BR Klassik 900129
Jansons oversees a strong live performance (2014) with the excellent Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Suffused with gloom, Misha Didyk’s distinctly baritonal Hermann possesses conviction. Tatiana Serjan brings interiority to Lisa in an interpretation notable for a timidity of spirit that sets her up for her terrible downfall.
Larissa Diadkova’s Countess is expertly crafted and Alexey Shishlyaev’s Tomsky makes a proper mark in all his scenes. Alexey Markov’s Yeletsky is at times ungainly, however.
And one to avoid…
A mix of Russians and non-Russians proves unconvincing in Seiji Ozawa’s 1991 account of Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades. It fails to capture the lairiness of this psychological melodrama. Vladimir Atlantov’s Hermann is engaged but undisciplined, while at this stage in her career Mirella Freni’s vocal colours are not appropriate for Lisa.
Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s open-hearted Yeletsky is peerlessly lyrical and Sergei Leiferkus’s Tomsky compelling, but Maureen Forrester’s Countess is too soft-grained. The amateur chorus doesn’t make an operatic sound, let alone a Russian one.
Loved Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades? Try these five works next
Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa
Seven years before Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades, the composer had turned to Pushkin’s poem Poltava for his opera Mazeppa. The title character is a Cossack hetman (military commander) who falls in love with the much younger Maria.
This plays out against the backdrop of the battle for Ukrainian independence from Peter the Great’s Russia. It is a grisly tale involving betrayal, execution and, finally, descent into madness.
Recommended recording: Sergei Leiferkus et al; Gothenburg SO/Neeme Järvi Deutsche Grammophon E477 5637
Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov
Heading a century further back to the early 1600s, Pushkin’s historical drama Boris Godunov provided the inspiration for Mussorgsky’s 1874 opera of the same name.
Boris is aware that he has become Tsar through nefarious means. As a result, he feels the weight of both his crime and the course of inevitability as another false pretender mounts a bid to dethrone him. A score of stunning individuality and power charts the descent of Russia itself into chaos.
Recommended recording: Vladimir Vaneyev et al; Kirov Orchestra and Chorus/Valery Gergiev Decca 478 3447
Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel
Like Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov made three operatic visits to Pushkin. These included Mozart and Salieri, The Tale of Tsar Saltan and The Golden Cockerel.
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The last of these was completed soon after Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and its subject matter – a caustic tale of crassness and ineptitude in the conduct of war – did not go unnoticed by the censors. However, moments such as the lavish Wedding March in Act III have ensured its enduring popularity. Well worth a listen if you're a fan of Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades.
Recommended recording: Gennady Pishchayev et al; Bolshoi/Yevgeny Akulov Melodiya RCID14773061
Dargomyzhsky's The Stone Guest
Rimsky Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri was dedicated to the memory of Dargomyzhsky, whose own Rusalka and The Stone Guest also have their origins in Pushkin. In fact, The Stone Guest scarcely deviates from the exact words of Pushkin’s 1830 drama on the fate of Don Juan. This will be a story long familiar to opera goers in the guise of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
Recommended recording: Nikolai Vassiliev et al; Bolshoi/Andrey Chistjakov Brilliant Classics 94028BR
Leoncavallo’s Zingari
Pushkin is not just the territory of Russian composers. Try also Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Zingari, based on the 1824 narrative poem The Gypsies. Although it was a huge hit at its premiere in London in 1912, it was then condemned to obscurity. The Italian’s compelling two-act tale of fading passion, burning jealousy and gruesome revenge has recently enjoyed something of a revival.
Recommended recording: Krassimira Stoyanova et al; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Carlo Rizzi Opera Rara 9293800612