The Bolshoi Theatre presents ‘The Queen of Spades’, one of Tchaikovsky’s most popular operas. This new production by the stage director Rimas Tuminas re-imagines the well-known novel by Alexander Pushkin that the opera is based on.

Together with the Director, the team created two years ago the Opera ‘Katerina Ismailova’ by Shostakovich worked staging ‘The Queen of Spades’ –  the stage designer Adomas Jacovskis and choreographer Angelica Cholina. This time Angelica Cholina performed not only as a choreographer, but also as a director. Music Director is the head of the Opera Tugan Sokhiev. 

Tuminas emphasises that that the libretto written by Modest Tchaikovsky based on the novel by Alexander Pushkin, is very close to the play. “Unlike many other Opera libretto, only suitable for a musical performance, this libretto can be put in the drama theatre. It has its own artistic expression, it has echoes not only of Pushkin’s ‘Queen of spades’ and ‘The bronze horseman’ and other works’,  believes Rimas Tuminas.

According to Tuminas, his task is to tell a story that ‘is very St. Petersburg in spirit, very in tune with the scene’. “The whole story, followed by Opera, imbued with special, just typical of this city mysterious and precarious atmosphere’, says Tuminas. 

The conflict of the Opera is built on the triangle of Liza – the Countess – Hermann, but, according to Rimas Tuminas, “The protagonist is Herman, he needs to be the focus of audience attention”.

“Herman also bears the imprint of heroes Hoffmann, Walter Scott, Balzac. And even some of Thomas Mann: he destroys his own unhappiness, as happened with the hero of the story ‘the Road to the cemetery’. The misfortune leads to the fact that he begins to hate himself, to eat away at himself, goes down the path of destruction and death”, says Tuminas.

The Queen of Spades premiered on February 15, 2018, at the Historical Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre.