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This Saturday at 1 p.m. our Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast season continues with Tchaikovsky’s opera The Queen of Spades. It premiered in St. Petersburg in 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre. After Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky’s operas don’t get much attention (his Iolanta didn’t get performed at the Met until 2015!). Like Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades is based on a work by Alexander Pushkin. However, Eugene Onegin stays closer to the original material, whereas with The Queen of Spades Tchaikovsky took some liberties.
The genesis of the opera took place when Tchaikovsky was approached by the Director for the Imperial Theatres, Ivan Vsevolozhsky. Vsevolozhsky had previously commissioned Tchaikovsky to compose the opera The Enchantress (or The Sorceress), which was premiered in 1887. Despite that opera’s failure, he also commissioned The Queen of Spades, after another composer abandoned the idea. There was already a partial sketch for a libretto from Tchaikovsky’s brother, Modest. The only thing preventing Tchaikovsky from beginning work on the opera was the upcoming premiere of his ballet, The Sleeping Beauty. Once that was through he headed to Florence, Italy for vacation, and to begin work on The Queen of Spades. The plot of the opera inspired Tchaikovsky almost to the point of almost obsession and pushed him to compose some of his most dramatic music. The music for the scene in which Hermann confronts the ‘Queen of Spades’ was so dark that Tchaikovsky said he was unnerved for several days, as if he had been possessed.
After 45 days Tchaikovsky already had completed the sketches for the entire opera. His brother, Modest, had to rush to keep up with Tchaikovsky, sending him the libretto scene by scene. Tchaikovsky had grown bored with Florence, and with his work done he decided to move on and head to Rome. (Although he said he regretted ever going to Florence, after he returned to Russia he composed his sextet Souvenir de Florence.)
Once back in Russia, Tchaikovsky’s neuroses were in full swing as the premiere for The Queen of Spades approached. He became fearful that Tsar Alexander III did not like the opera. The Tsar had attended the dress rehearsal and had not returned for any performances. After only a couple of sold-out performances, the opera was pulled from the rest of the season. Angry, depressed, and paranoid, Tchaikovsky took his complaints to Vsevolozhsky. Vsevolozhsky calmed Tchaikovsky and explained that the Tsar was still one of Tchaikovsky’s biggest admirers. The real reason the opera was pulled was that Nikolay Figner (who was playing Hermann) refused to sing with anyone other than his wife as Lisa. Since she was pregnant and could not keep performing, the opera had to be pulled.
Don’t miss your chance to hear this darkly gripping tale. Vasily Petrenko leads the Met Orchestra and Choir with tenor Yusif Eyvazov starring as Hermann. Lise Davidsen makes her highly anticipated Met debut as Lisa, and Russian mezzo-soprano Larissa Diadkova stars as the countess. Join me this Saturday at 1 p.m. for Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades live from the Met Opera stage!
