12 November 2018
Newsdesk
Stefan Herheim's staging of Pyotr ll’yich Tchaikovsky’s most ambitious opera, The Queen of Spades, is given its UK premiere by The Royal Opera in January 2019 conducted by The Royal Opera’s Music Director Antonio Pappano. The production was first seen at Dutch National Opera in 2016.
The penniless soldier Gherman has fallen in love with Liza, even though she is engaged to his friend Yeletsky. Gherman learns that Liza's guaridan the Countess knows a winning three-card formula. Gherman determines to wrest the secret of the formula from the Countess, gain a fortune through gambling and win Liza from Yeletsky.
Norwegian director Stefan Herheim's spectacular production, which asks searching questions about the nature of creativity and the parallels between life and art, places Tchaikovsky himself at the heart of the action, imagining the opera into life as his story, its characters giving voice to his unfulfilled desires. Stefan Herheim made his Royal Opera debut in 2013, directing The Royal Opera’s first production of Les Vêpres siciliennes, which won an Olivier Award.
The Queen of Spades is one of Tchaikovsky's most impressive and varied scores, containing grand choruses, intimate arias and duets, including Prince Yeletsky’s ravishingly tender aria ‘Ja vas lyublyu’ and the terrifying Act III scene in which the ghost of the Countess appears to Gherman.
The Queen of Spades is in three acts. The libretto is by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, in collaboration with Tchaikovsky himself. It is based on a short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin. The production features set and costume designs by Philipp Furhofer, lighting design by Bernd Purkrabek and dramaturgy by Alexander Meier-Dorzenbach. The opera’s wonderful music provides a showcase for the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and Royal Opera Chorus.
Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko and Dutch soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek sing the roles of Gherman and Liza, both for the first time at Covent Garden. Other cast members include British mezzo-soprano Felicity Palmer as the Countess, Bulgarian baritone Vladimir Stoyanov (in his Royal Opera debut) as Prince Yeletsky and Russian mezzo-soprano Anna Goryachova (last seen with The Royal Opera as Carmen in 2018) as Paulina. Vladimir Stoyanov and Anna Goryachova sang their roles in the same production for Dutch National Opera.
The Queen of Spadesopens at the Royal Opera House on 13 January 2019, with subsequent performances on 16, 19, 22, 25 and 28 January and 1 February 2019. The Queen of Spades will be shown in UK cinemas on 22 January 2019 with an encore screening on 27 January 2019. The production will be broadcast in cinemas around the world.
The Queen of Spades will also be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 later in 2019. Please check BBC Radio 3’s Opera on 3 website for the latest schedules.
