PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893):
PIQUE DAME

Synopsis

ACT I

Scene 1. Spring during the reign of Catherine the Great (1762-1796).

Nursemaids, governesses, and wet-nurses are enjoying the weather along with their young charges. The children are at play in Saint Petersburg's Summer Garden, pretending to be soldiers. Tchaikovsky may have borrowed this scene from Bizet's Carmen, his favorite opera. Two officers, Tsurin and Chekalinsky, enter. Tsurin complains about his bad luck at gambling. Both remark that another officer, Hermann, seems obsessed with the gaming table but never bets. He appears to be frugal and methodical. Herman then appears with Tomsky, who remarks that his friend hardly seems like his old self and asks if anything is bothering him. In response to the question, Hermann admits that he has fallen in love with a girl who is above his station and whose name he does not even know. In a formal aria in two parts, he sings: "Ya imyeni yeyo nye znayu" ("I don't even know her name"). The group wanders off and the crowd breaks into a paean to the glorious weather.

When Prince Yeletsky, an officer, strolls into the park, Chekalinsky congratulates him on his recent engagement. Yeletsky declares his happiness while Hermann, in an aside, curses him enviously. Yeletsky points out his fiancée, Liza, who has just appeared with her grandmother, the old Countess. Catching sight of Hermann, the two women acknowledge that they have seen him before and noticed him staring at them with frightening intensity. Hermann realizes that Liza is his unknown beloved. All the principals briefly join in individual though simultaneous expressions of dread: "Mne strashno!" ("I'm frightened!"). This tiny quintet has been called the opera's dramatic "knot".

When Yeletsky and the women leave, Hermann is lost in thought as the other officers discuss the countess. Known as the Queen of Spades and formerly as the Muscovite Venus because of her beauty, she succeeded at gambling in her youth by trading amorous favors for the winning formula of Count St. Germain in Paris. Tomsky says that only two men, her husband and, later on, her young lover, ever learned the secret of playing three special cards, because she was warned by an apparition to beware a "third suitor" who would kill her trying to force it from her. Tomsky sings: "Odnazhdi v Versalys" ("Tri karti"). Musing on the winning sequence of three cards, the others lightly suggest that learning the secret from the countess might be the way for Hermann to win without risking any money. Threatened by approaching thunder, all leave except Hermann, who vows to learn the countess's secret.

Scene 2. Lisa's room; a door to the balcony overhanging the garden.

Lisa plays the harpsichord  as she and her friend Pauline sing a beautiful and dreamy duet about evening in the countryside: "Uzh, vecher, oblakov pomerknuli kraya" ("Tis evening, the edges of the clouds have darkened"). When their friends ask to hear more, Pauline launches into a sad ballad, "Podrugi miliye" ("Dear girls"), followed by a charming dancelike song of the steppes. As the merriment increases, Lisa remains pensively apart. A governess chides the girls for indulging in unbecoming folk dancing and asks the visitors to leave. Pauline, the last to go, urges Lisa to cheer up; Lisa replies that after a storm, there is a beautiful night. She asks the maid, Masha, not to close the French windows to the balcony.

Now alone, Lisa voices her unhappiness with her engagement. She expresses her ambivalent feelings to the night: "Zachem zhe eti slyozi" ("But why these tears?"). She has been stirred by the romantic look of the young man in the park. To her shock, that same young man, Hermann, appears on the balcony. The couple's first exchange is accompanied by music previously heard at the climax of the orchestral introduction; it is the love music of the opera. Claiming that he is about to shoot himself over Lisa's betrothal to another, he begs her to take pity on him. He delivers his arioso on one knee, singing: "Prosti, prelestnoye sozdan'ye" ("Forgive me, sweet adorable creature"). When the countess is heard knocking at the door, Lisa hides Hermann. She opens the door to the old woman, who tells her to shut the windows and go to bed. After the countess retires, Lisa asks Hermann to leave. Overcome by her feelings, she falls into his embrace, exclaiming "I am yours!"

ACT II

Scene 1. A masked ball in the home of a nobleman.

The scene begins with a chorus, the first of the scene's many neoclassical stylizations. The Master of Ceremonies invites the guests outdoors to see a fresh display of fireworks. Hermann's comrades observe his obsession with the secret of the winning cards. Yeletsky passes with Lisa, noting her sadness and reassuring her of his love: ("Ya vaslyublyu" ("I love you beyond measure"). The beautiful aria is reminiscent of Prince Gremin's aria in Eugene Onegin.

Hermann receives a note from Lisa, asking him to meet her later. His agitation is reflected in the syncopations and sudden halts that characterize the orchestral accompaniment throughout this scene. Tsurin and Chekalinsky sneak up behind Hermann with the intent of playing a joke on him, muttering that he is the "third suitor" who will learn the countess's secret. They melt into the crowd. Hermann is dumfounded.

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About Russian Opera

• The rise of cultivated Russian music was related to the rise of 19th century nationalism (e.g. French Revolution, 1848 failed insurrections in Prague, Hungary, Budapest, Austria, Italy, Norway, Poland, and France) and specifically to Russian fear of foreign influences. Xenophobia thus became what Robert Greenberg calls a "compositional inspiration".  Fear of foreign influence was nothing new in Russia. Not until Peter the Great 1682-1725) became Tsar did a Russian ruler visit Europe and bring European influences back to Russia.
• The spirit of individual freedom and nationalism that powered the failed Decembrist revolt in 1825 also impacted Russian writers, poets, and musicians. They worked to create a uniquely Russian artistic tradition. Poet and author Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) was extremely influential. As an individualistic, nationalistic rabble-rouser, he might be compared to a left-wing hippy agitator in the United States in the 1960s. Pushkin elevated the literary perception of the Russian language through the model of his own works.  Pushkin works that were turned into operas included Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and Pique Dame, Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, and Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila.
• The composers most frequently associated with Russian nationalism were first Glinka and later The Mighty Handful (sometimes called the Mighty Five), also called the Kuchka: Mily Balakirev, Cesar Cui, Modest Moussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Alexander Borodin. The Five considered the Rubinstein brothers, Anton the pianist and Nicolai, the founder of the Moscow Conservatory, to be the enemies of Russian music. Nicolai had spent time in Europe before founding the Conservatory, and The Five strongly opposed the European influence that he brought home with him. Cesar Cui called Anton Rubinstein "merely a Russian who composes" rather than a Russian composer. With the exception of Rimsky-Korsakov, who eventually taught at the Moscow Conservatory, Tchaikovsky didn't hold The Five in high regard.
• Russian folk music often appears in Russian opera. Although the Russian Orthodox Church frowned on instrumental performances because of their distraction to parishioners, in rural areas, the authorities allowed the peasants to use instruments such as the dudka (vertical flute), zhaleyka (single-reed wooden flute), shepherds' horns, panpipes, skripka (Russian fiddle), gusli (psaltery – plucked instrument), and the balalaika (3 stringed instrument with triangular sound board and played with fingers).

Highlights of the Opera

• The three-act opera takes place in and near St. Petersburg during the nineteenth century. The libretto was written by Tchaikovsky's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, after a story written by Pushkin (the novelette Pikovaya Dama, a model of narrative suspense and mounting dramatic impact. Merimee's translation of this Russian classic has become a French classic. Modest initially prepared the libretto not for his brother Peter, but for the minor composer Nikolay Semyonovich Klenovsky, who was then a conductor at the Bolshoi Theatre who had received a commission from the Theatre's Intendant to write an opera on the famous Pushkin story. Peter had to wait for the others to offer a right of refusal before he could tackle the music himself.
• Although Modest took liberties with the Pushkin original, he preserved the unifying drive of Hermann's incessant gambling mania. Although guardians of Soviet literature have expressed disapproval for the many modifications of the Pushkin novel, others have praised the opera as the "first and possibly the greatest masterpiece of musical surrealism."
• The gambling motif plays a prominent role in the opera. Meant to suggest a psychological thread, it was a favorite of Russian writers such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
• Although some of the music was originally written for a different opera based on another Pushkin tale, "The Captain's Daughter", Tchaikovsky abandoned that project after completing the opera.
• Tchaikovsky composed the opera in Florence in 44 days of frenzied inspiration. The speed of composition was matched by an unusually tight construction and a quality of imagination unmatched in Russian opera.
• The first performance took place at the Imperial Opera House in St. Petersburg on December 19, 1890. Eduard Napravnik conducted. Nikolay Figner sang the role of Hermann. Ivan Mel'nikov was Tomsky. Mariya Slavina was the countess. Medea Mei-Figner was Lisa. The American premiere, sung in German, took place at the Metropolitan Opera House on March 5, 1910. The first performance in Russian in the United States took place on May 10, 1922.
• "Life is but a game," a quote from Act III, became a proverb in Russia. What? Where? When?, a trivia game and one of the most popular TV shows in Russia and former Soviet Union countries, begins with a musical quotation from the opera, where Hermann sings "Life is but a game."