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Schedule - Deutsche Oper Berlin

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Pikowaja Dama - Queen of Spades

Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893)

26
Thursday
June
19:00 - 22:15
C prices: € 108.00 / 90.00 / 64.00 / 40.00 / 26.00
Buy tickets
Strobe lighting is used during the performance. At the end of the performance, a shot with a blank cartridge sounds on stage.
Information about the work

Opera in three acts by Piotr I. Tchaikovsky
Libretto by Modest Tchaikovsky based on Alexander Puschkin
First performance on 19 December, 1890, in Sankt Petersburg
Premiere on 9 March 2024

approximately 3 hrs 15 mins / 1 interval

In Russian with German and English surtitles

45 minutes before beginning: Introduction (in German language)

recommended from 14 years
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Cast
Our thanks to our partners

Kindly supported by Förderkreis der Deutschen Oper Berlin e. V.

26
Thursday
June
19:00 - 22:15
C prices: € 108.00 / 90.00 / 64.00 / 40.00 / 26.00
Buy tickets
Strobe lighting is used during the performance. At the end of the performance, a shot with a blank cartridge sounds on stage.
Cast
the content

About the work
THE QUEEN OF SPADES, Tchaikovsky’s second most popular opera after EUGENE ONEGIN, delights audiences due to its sheer scale, among other qualities. The mood switches effortlessly from full chorus and ensemble to delicate chamber scenes. Sophisticated leisured society rubs up against indigent proletariat. Pushkin’s novella was used by Pyotr and Modest Tchaikovsky as the springboard into a psychogram of the two main protagonists Herman and Lisa, who are bound by their star-crossed despair and thwarted desire to express themselves freely. Herman serves the homosexual Tchaikovsky brothers not only as a touchstone in his capacity as social outcast; his profession as military engineer is also a reference to their father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky.

Herman, an officer fascinated by the secrets of the gambling community, is in love with Lisa, a lady of gentle birth. Lisa yearns for self-determination but still lives under the thumb of her grandmother, the Countess, who, besides having stirred up Parisian high society in her youth, is also reputed to be the holder of a secret strategy for winning at cards. When Herman hears the rumour, he is sure that he has found a way out of his misery. His fixation on the mystery of the Three Cards takes its course.

About the production
Director Sam Brown makes his debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. His set design - heavily informed by that of his friend and director colleague Sir Graham Vick, who died tragically in 2021 – accentuates the nuances and ambiguities of the work’s dramatic storyline. His approach deliberately poses questions that are meant to remain unanswered. Does Herman love Lisa or is she just the means to an end? Is Lisa a helpless victim or does she just think Herman can help her escape her golden cage? Is there really a secret key to success at cards or is it just a figment of Herman’s imagination?

Our articles on the subject

In the spirit of friendship
Aren’t you ashamed of dancing a Russian jig?
Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades) – Synopsis
Fortune, Gambling, Compulsion
Passion and Calculation
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12
DEC

Adventskalender im Foyer: Das 12. Fensterchen

Today in the foyer: ‘The Snow Queen’ as a live audio play
A reading with Burkhard Ulrich and Fanny Frohnmeyer, with Lukas Zeuner on the drums
5:00 p.m. / Parkettfoyer
Duration: approx. 25 minutes / Free admission


‘Behold! Now we begin. When we reach the end of the story, we will know more than we do now, because it was an evil goblin! It was one of the very worst, it was the devil! One day he was in a good mood because he had made a mirror that had the property of making everything good and beautiful reflected in it shrink to almost nothing, but what was no good and looked bad was emphasised and became even worse. The most magnificent landscapes looked like overcooked spinach in it, and the best people became disgusting or stood on their heads without a torso,’ so begins the fairy tale “The Snow Queen” by Hans Christian Andersen.

By an unfortunate accident, a splinter of this evil magic mirror jumps into Kay's heart , whereupon he suddenly finds life in his small town quite awful and lets himself be taken by the nasty Snow Queen to the far north. But Kay's friend Gerda sets out to save her best friend. With the help of a crow and a reindeer, she eventually finds her way to the cold north of Lapland and, with the true power of friendship and laughter, she is able to free Kay from the clutches of the Snow Queen.

Today, in the foyer, the tenor Burkhard Ulrich and the director of our Junge Deutsche Oper Fanny Frohnmeyer read this touching and wonderful fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen for all fairy tale fans, old and young! And our percussionist Lukas Zeuner provides the sound for the story with marimbas, a xylophone and all kinds of rhythm and sound instruments. And all this live and very close to the audience, next to the large fir tree in the parquet foyer.