Mysteries of the opera libretto of the Queen of Spades. Medley from the opera P.I. Tchaikovsky "Queen of Spades". Characters and plot

03.11.2019

So, the action is transferred to the century of Catherine II. The main character is completely different from his prototype. This is an enthusiastic romantic, endowed with a sublime soul. He idolizes Lisa, his “beauty, goddess,” without daring to kiss her footprint. All his ariosos in the first act are passionate declarations of love. The desire to get rich is not a goal, but a means to overcome the social abyss that separates him and Lisa (after all, Lisa in the opera is not a hanger-on, but the rich granddaughter of the Countess). “Know three cards and I’m rich,” he exclaims, “and with it I can run away from people.” This idea takes possession of him more and more, displacing his love for Lisa. The tragedy of Herman's mental struggle is aggravated by his collision with the formidable force of fate. The embodiment of this power is the Countess. The hero dies, and yet love triumphs in Tchaikovsky’s music: in the finale of the opera the bright theme of love sounds, like a hymn to its beauty, the powerful impulse of the human soul towards light, joy and happiness. Herman's dying appeal to Lisa, as it were, atones for his guilt and inspires hope for the salvation of his rebellious soul. The plot of the story plays on the theme of unpredictable fate, fortune, and rock, beloved by Pushkin (as well as other romantics). A young military engineer, German Hermann, leads a modest life and amasses a fortune; he does not even play cards and limits himself only to watching the game. His friend Tomsky tells a story about how his grandmother, the countess, while in Paris, lost a large sum at cards on her word. She tried to borrow from the Count of Saint-Germain,
but instead of money, he told her a secret about how to guess three cards at once in a game. The Countess, thanks to the secret, completely won back.

Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna - prototype of the Countess from "The Queen of Spades"

Hermann, having seduced her pupil, Lisa, enters the countess’s bedroom and, with pleas and threats, tries to find out the cherished secret. Seeing an unloaded pistol in his hands, the Countess dies of a heart attack. At the funeral, Hermann imagines that the late countess opens her eyes and glances at him. In the evening her ghost appears to Hermann and says, that three cards (“three, seven, ace”) will bring him a win, but he should not bet more than one card per day. Three cards become an obsession for Hermann:

The famous millionaire gambler Chekalinsky comes to Moscow. Hermann bets all his capital on three, wins and doubles it. The next day he bets all his money on seven, wins and again doubles his capital. On the third day, Hermann bets money (already about two hundred thousand) on the ace, but the queen falls out. Hermann sees the smiling and winking queen of spades on the map, which reminds him Countess. The ruined Hermann ends up in a mental hospital, where he does not react to anything and constantly “mutters unusually quickly: “Three, seven, ace!” Three, seven, queen!..”

Prince Yeletsky (from the opera " Queen of Spades»)
I love you, I love you immensely,

I can’t imagine living a day without you.

And a feat of unparalleled strength

I'm ready to do it for you now,

Oh, I'm tormented by this distance,

I sympathize with you with all my heart,

I'm saddened by your sadness

And I cry with your tears...

I sympathize with you with all my heart!

The seventh picture begins with everyday episodes: a drinking song of the guests, Tomsky’s frivolous song “If only dear girls” (to the words of G. R. Derzhavin). With the appearance of Herman, the music becomes nervously excited.
The anxiously wary septet “Something is wrong here” conveys the excitement that gripped the players. The rapture of victory and cruel joy can be heard in Herman’s aria “What is our life? Game!". In the dying minute, his thoughts are again turned to Lisa - a reverently tender image of love appears in the orchestra.

Herman (from the opera "The Queen of Spades")

That our life is a game,

Good and evil, just dreams.

Work, honesty, old wives' tales,

Who is right, who is happy here, friends,

Today you, and tomorrow me.

So give up the fight

Seize the moment of luck

Let the loser cry

Cursing, cursing my fate.

What is true is that there is only one death,

Like the shore of the sea of bustle.

She is a refuge for us all,

Which of us is dearer to her, friends?

Today you, and tomorrow me.

So give up the fight

Seize the moment of luck

Let the loser cry

Cursing my fate.

Chorus of guests and players (from the opera “The Queen of Spades”)

Youth doesn't last forever

Let's drink and have fun!

Let's play with life!
Old age is not long to wait!
Youth doesn't last forever
Old age is not long to wait!
We don't have to wait long.
Old age is not long to wait!

Not long to wait.
Let our youth drown
In bliss, cards and wine!
Let our youth drown
In bliss, cards and wine!

They are the only joy in the world,
Life will fly by like in a dream!
Youth doesn't last forever
Old age is not long to wait!
We don't have to wait long.
Old age is not long to wait!
Not long to wait.
Lisa and Polina (from the opera "The Queen of Spades")

Lisa's room. Door to balcony overlooking the garden.

Lisa at the harpsichord. Polina is near her; friends are here. Lisa and Polina sing an idyllic duet to the words of Zhukovsky (“It’s already evening... the edges of the clouds have darkened”). Friends express delight. Lisa asks Polina to sing alone. Polina sings. Her romance “Dear Friends” sounds gloomy and doomed. It seems to resurrect the good old days - it’s not for nothing that the accompaniment in it sounds on the harpsichord. Here the librettist used Batyushkov’s poem. It formulates an idea that was first expressed in the 17th century in the Latin phrase that then became popular: “Et in Arcadia ego,” meaning: “And in Arcadia (that is, in paradise) I (death) am”;

in the 18th century, that is, at the time remembered in the opera, this phrase was rethought, and now it meant: “And I once lived in Arcadia” (which is a violation of the grammar of the Latin original), and this is what Polina sings about : “And I, like you, lived happy in Arcadia.” This Latin phrase could often be found on tombstones (N. Poussin depicted such a scene twice); Polina, like Lisa, accompanying herself on the harpsichord, completes her romance with the words: “But what did I get in these joyful places? Grave!”) Everyone is touched and excited. But now Polina herself wants to add a more cheerful note and offers to sing “Russian in honor of the bride and groom!”
(that is, Lisa and Prince Yeletsky). Girlfriends clap their hands. Lisa, not taking part in the fun, stands at the balcony. Polina and her friends start singing, then start dancing. The governess enters and puts an end to the girls' fun, announcing that the Countess,
Hearing the noise, she got angry. The young ladies disperse. Lisa sees Polina off. The maid (Masha) enters; she puts out the candles, leaving only one, and wants to close the balcony, but Lisa stops her. Left alone, Lisa indulges in thought and quietly cries. Her arioso “Where do these tears come from” sounds. Lisa turns to the night and confides in her the secret of her soul: “She
gloomy, like you, she’s like the sad gaze of eyes that took away peace and happiness from me...”
It's already evening...

The edges of the clouds have darkened,

The last ray of dawn on the towers dies;

The last shining stream in the river

With the extinct sky it fades away,

Fading away.
Prilepa (from the opera “The Queen of Spades”)
My dear little friend,

Dear shepherd,

For whom I sigh

And I wish to open passion,

Oh, I didn't come to dance.
Milovzor (from the opera “The Queen of Spades”)
I'm here, but I'm boring, languid,

Look how much weight you've lost!

I won't be modest anymore

I hid my passion for a long time.

Will no longer be modest

He hid his passion for a long time.

Herman’s tenderly sad and passionate arioso “Forgive me, heavenly creature” is interrupted by the appearance of the Countess: the music takes on a tragic tone; sharp, nervous rhythms and ominous orchestral colors emerge. The second picture ends with the affirmation of the bright theme of love. In the third scene (second act), scenes of metropolitan life become the background of the developing drama. The opening chorus in the spirit of welcoming cantatas of Catherine’s era is a kind of screensaver of the picture. Prince Yeletsky’s aria “I love you” depicts his nobility and restraint. Pastoral "Sincerity"
shepherdesses" - a stylization of 18th century music; elegant, graceful songs and dances frame the idyllic love duet of Prilepa and Milovzor.

Forgive me, heavenly creature,

That I disturbed your peace.

Sorry, but don’t reject a passionate confession,

Don't reject with sadness...

Oh, have pity, I'm dying

I bring my prayer to you,

Look from the heights of heavenly paradise

To the death struggle

A soul tormented

Love for you... In the finale, at the moment of the meeting of Lisa and Herman, a distorted melody of love sounds in the orchestra: a turning point has occurred in Herman’s consciousness, from now on he is guided not by love, but by the persistent thought of three cards. The fourth picture
central to the opera, full of anxiety and drama. It begins with an orchestral introduction, in which the intonations of Herman’s love confessions are guessed. The chorus of hangers-on (“Our Benefactor”) and the Countess’s song (a melody from Grétry’s opera “Richard the Lionheart”) are replaced by music of an ominously hidden nature. It contrasts with Herman’s arioso, imbued with a passionate feeling, “If you ever knew the feeling of love”

Based on the libretto by Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky based on the story of the same name by A.S. Pushkin.

Characters:

HERMAN (tenor)
COUNT TOMSKY (baritone)
PRINCE ELETSKY (baritone)
CHEKALINSKY (tenor)
SURIN (tenor)
CHAPLITSKY (bass)
NARUMOV (bass)
MANAGER (tenor)
COUNTESS (mezzo-soprano)
LISA (soprano)
POLINA (contralto)
THE GOVERNESS (mezzo-soprano)
MASHA (soprano)
BOY COMMANDER (without singing)

characters in the interlude:
PRILEPA (soprano)
MILOVZOR (POLINA) (contralto)
ZLATOGOR (COUNT OF TOMSKY) (baritone)
NANIES, GOVERNESSS, NURSES, WALKERS, GUESTS, CHILDREN, PLAYERS, AND OTHER.

Time of action: the end of the 18th century, but no later than 1796.
Location: St. Petersburg.
First performance: St. Petersburg, Mariinsky Theater, December 7 (19), 1890.

Amazingly, before P.I. Tchaikovsky created his tragic operatic masterpiece, Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades” inspired Franz Suppe to write... an operetta (1864); and even earlier - in 1850 - the French composer Jacques François Fromental Halévy wrote an opera of the same name (however, little remains of Pushkin here: Scribe wrote the libretto, using the translation of “The Queen of Spades” into French, made in 1843 by Prosper Merimee; in this opera the hero's name is changed, the old countess is turned into a young Polish princess, and so on). These are, of course, curious circumstances, which can only be learned from music encyclopedias - artistic value these works do not represent.

The plot of “The Queen of Spades,” proposed to the composer by his brother, Modest Ilyich, did not immediately interest Tchaikovsky (as the plot of “Eugene Onegin” had done in his time), but when it finally captured his imagination, Tchaikovsky began working on the opera “with selflessness and pleasure" (as with "Eugene Onegin"), and the opera (in clavier) was written in an amazingly short time - in 44 days. In a letter to N.F. von Meck P.I. Tchaikovsky talks about how he came up with the idea of writing an opera on this plot: “It happened this way: my brother Modest three years ago began composing a libretto for the plot of “The Queen of Spades” at the request of a certain Klenovsky, but this latter finally gave up composing music, for some reason he was unable to cope with his task. Meanwhile, the director of the theaters, Vsevolozhsky, was carried away by the idea that I should write an opera on this very plot, and certainly for the next season. He expressed this desire to me, and since it coincided with my decision to flee Russia in January and start writing, I agreed... I really want to work, and if I manage to get a good job somewhere in a cozy corner abroad, it seems to me , that I will master my task and by May I will present it to the directorate of the keyboard, and in the summer I will be instrumentalizing it.”

Tchaikovsky went to Florence and began working on The Queen of Spades on January 19, 1890. The surviving sketches give an idea of how and in what sequence the work proceeded: this time the composer wrote almost “in a row” (unlike “Eugene Onegin,” the composition of which began with the scene of Tatiana’s letter). The intensity of this work is amazing: from January 19 to 28, the first picture is composed, from January 29 to February 4, the second picture, from February 5 to 11, the fourth picture, from February 11 to 19, the third picture, etc.

The libretto of the opera differs to a very large extent from the original. Pushkin's work is prose, the libretto is poetic, with poems not only by the librettist and the composer himself, but also by Derzhavin, Zhukovsky, Batyushkov. Pushkin's Lisa is a poor pupil of a rich old countess; in Tchaikovsky she is her granddaughter, “in order,” as the librettist explains, “to make Herman’s love for her more natural”; it is not clear, however, why his love would be less “natural” for the poor girl. In addition, an unclear question arises about her parents - who, where they are, what happened to them. Pushkin’s Hermann (sic!) is from the Germans, which is why this is the spelling of his last name; in Tchaikovsky, nothing is known about his German origin, and in the opera “Herman” (with one “n”) is perceived simply as a name. Prince Yeletsky, who appears in the opera, is absent from Pushkin. Count Tomsky, whose relationship with the countess is not noted in any way in the opera, and where he was introduced by an outsider (just an acquaintance of Herman, like other players), is her grandson in Pushkin; this apparently explains his knowledge of the family secret. The action of Pushkin's drama takes place in the era of Alexander I, while the opera takes us - this was the idea of the director of the imperial theaters I.A. Vsevolozhsky - to Catherine's era. The endings of the drama in Pushkin and Tchaikovsky are also different: in Pushkin, Hermann, although he goes crazy (“He is sitting in the Obukhov hospital in room 17”), still does not die, and Liza, moreover, gets married relatively safely; in Tchaikovsky, both heroes die. One can give many more examples of differences - both external and internal - in the interpretation of events and characters by Pushkin and Tchaikovsky.

INTRODUCTION

The opera begins with an orchestral introduction built on three contrasting musical images. The first theme is the theme of Tomsky's story (from his ballad) about the old countess. The second theme describes the Countess herself, and the third is passionately lyrical (the image of Herman’s love for Lisa).

ACT I

Picture 1."Spring. Summer garden. Venue. Nannies, governesses and nurses sit on benches and walk around the garden. Children play burners, others jump over ropes and throw balls.” This is the composer's first remark in the score. In this everyday scene, there are choirs of nannies and governesses, and a cheerful march of boys: a boy commander walks ahead, he gives commands (“Musket ahead of you! Take the muzzle! Musket to your foot!”), the rest carry out his commands, then, drumming and blowing a trumpet they leave. Other children follow the boys. The nannies and governesses disperse, giving way to other walkers.

Enter Chekalinsky and Surin, two officers. Chekalinsky asks how the game (of cards) in which Surin took part ended the day before. It’s bad, he, Surin, lost. The conversation turns to Herman, who also comes, but does not play, but only watches. And in general, his behavior is quite strange, “as if he has at least three atrocities in his heart,” says Surin. Herman himself enters, thoughtful and gloomy. Count Tomsky is with him. They are talking to each other. Tomsky asks Herman what is happening to him, why he has become so gloomy. Herman reveals a secret to him: he is passionately in love with a beautiful stranger. He talks about this in the arioso “I don’t know her name.” Tomsky is surprised by Herman’s passion (“Is it you, Herman? I confess, I wouldn’t believe anyone that you are capable of loving like that!”). They pass, and the stage is again filled with people walking. Their chorus sounds: “Finally, God sent a sunny day!” - a sharp contrast to Herman’s gloomy mood (critics who considered these and similar episodes in the opera unnecessary, for example V. Baskin, the author of the first critical essay on the life and work of Tchaikovsky (1895), apparently underestimated the expressive power of these mood contrasts. They walk in the garden and old women, old men, young ladies, and young people are talking about the weather, all of them singing at the same time.

Herman and Tomsky reappear. They continue the conversation that was interrupted for the viewer with their previous departure (“Are you sure that she doesn’t notice you?” Tomsky asks Germana). Prince Yeletsky enters. Chekalinsky and Surin go to him. They congratulate the prince on the fact that he is now the groom. Herman asks who the bride is. At this moment the Countess and Lisa enter. The prince points to Lisa - this is his bride. Herman is in despair. The Countess and Lisa notice Herman, and both of them are overcome by an ominous feeling. “I’m scared,” they sing together. The same phrase - a wonderful dramatic find of the composer - begins the poems of Herman, Tomsky and Yeletsky, which they sing simultaneously with the Countess and Lisa, each further expressing their feelings and forming a wonderful quintet - the central episode of the scene.

With the end of the quintet, Count Tomsky approaches the Countess, Prince Yeletsky approaches Liza. Herman remains aside, and the Countess looks at him intently. Tomsky turns to the Countess and congratulates her. She, as if not hearing his congratulations, asks him about the officer, who is he? Tomsky explains that this is German, his friend. He and the Countess retreat to the back of the stage. Prince Yeletsky offers his hand to Lisa; he radiates joy and delight. Herman sees this with undisguised jealousy and sings, as if reasoning to himself: “Rejoice, friend! Have you forgotten that after a quiet day there can be a thunderstorm!” With these words of his, a distant rumble of thunder can actually be heard.

The men (here German, Tomsky, Surin and Chekalinsky; Prince Yeletsky left earlier with Lisa) start talking about the countess. Everyone agrees that she is a “witch,” a “bogeyman,” and an “octogenarian hag.” Tomsky (according to Pushkin, her grandson), however, knows something about her that no one knows. “The Countess, many years ago in Paris, was known as a beauty,” - this is how he begins his ballad and talks about how the Countess once lost all her fortune. Then the Count of Saint-Germain offered her - at the cost of only a "rendez-vous" - to show her three cards, which, if she bet on them, would return her fortune to her. The Countess got her revenge... but what a price! Twice she revealed the secret of these cards: first time to her husband, second time to a handsome young man. But a ghost who appeared to her that same night warned her that she would receive a fatal blow from a third person who, ardently in love, would come to forcefully learn the three cards. Everyone perceives this story as a funny story and even, laughing, advise Herman to take advantage of the opportunity. A strong clap of thunder is heard. A thunderstorm is brewing. People walking are hurrying in different directions. Herman, before he himself escapes from the thunderstorm, swears that Lisa will be his or he will die. So, in the first picture, Herman’s dominant feeling remains love for Lisa. Something will happen next...

Picture 2. Lisa's room. Door to balcony overlooking the garden. Lisa at the harpsichord. Polina is near her; friends are here. Lisa and Polina sing an idyllic duet to the words of Zhukovsky (“It’s already evening... the edges of the clouds have darkened”). Friends express delight. Lisa asks Polina to sing alone. Polina sings. Her romance “Dear Friends” sounds gloomy and doomed. It seems to resurrect the good old days - it’s not for nothing that the accompaniment in it sounds on the harpsichord. Here the librettist used Batyushkov’s poem. It formulates an idea that was first expressed in the 17th century in the Latin phrase that then became popular: “Et in Arcadia ego,” meaning: “And (even) in Arcadia (that is, in paradise) I (that is, death) (is) "; in the 18th century, that is, at the time remembered in the opera, this phrase was rethought, and now it meant: “And I once lived in Arcadia” (which is a violation of the grammar of the Latin original), and this is what Polina sings about : “And I, like you, lived happy in Arcadia.” This Latin phrase could often be found on tombstones (N. Poussin depicted such a scene twice); Polina, like Lisa, accompanying herself on the harpsichord, completes her romance with the words: “But what did I get in these joyful places? Grave!”) Everyone is touched and excited. But now Polina herself wants to add a more cheerful note and offers to sing “Russian in honor of the bride and groom!” (that is, Lisa and Prince Yeletsky). Girlfriends clap their hands. Lisa, not taking part in the fun, stands at the balcony. Polina and her friends start singing, then start dancing. The governess enters and puts an end to the girls' fun, reporting that the countess, having heard the noise, became angry. The young ladies disperse. Lisa sees Polina off. The maid (Masha) enters; she puts out the candles, leaving only one, and wants to close the balcony, but Lisa stops her.

Left alone, Lisa indulges in thought and quietly cries. Her arioso “Where do these tears come from” sounds. Lisa turns to the night and confides in her the secret of her soul: “She is gloomy, like you, she is like the sad gaze of eyes that took away peace and happiness from me...”

Herman appears at the door of the balcony. Lisa retreats in horror. They look at each other silently. Lisa makes a move to leave. Herman begs her not to leave. Lisa is confused, she is ready to scream. Herman takes out a pistol, threatening that he will kill himself - “alone or in front of others.” The big duet of Lisa and Herman is full of passionate impulse. Herman exclaims: “Beauty! Goddess! Angel!" He kneels in front of Lisa. His arioso “Forgive me, heavenly creature, that I disturbed your peace” sounds tender and sad - one of Tchaikovsky’s best tenor arias.

Footsteps are heard outside the door. The Countess, alarmed by the noise, heads towards Lisa's room. She knocks on the door, demands that Liza open (she opens it), and enters; with her are the maids with candles. Lisa manages to hide Herman behind the curtain. The Countess angrily reprimands her granddaughter for not sleeping, for the door to the balcony being open, for disturbing the grandmother - and in general for not daring to try anything stupid. The Countess leaves.

Herman recalls the fateful words: “Who, passionately loving, will come to probably learn from you three cards, three cards, three cards!” Lisa closes the door behind the Countess, approaches the balcony, opens it and motions for Herman to leave. Herman begs her not to drive him away. To leave means to die for him. "No! Live!” exclaims Lisa. Herman impulsively hugs her; she rests her head on his shoulder. "Gorgeous! Goddess! Angel! I love you! - Herman sings ecstatically.

ACT II

The second act contains a contrast between two scenes, of which the first (in order in the opera - the third) takes place at the ball, and the second (fourth) - in the countess's bedroom.

Picture 3. A masquerade ball in the house of a rich metropolitan (naturally, St. Petersburg) nobleman. Large hall. On the sides, between the columns, there are boxes. Guests dance contradance. The singers sing in the choirs. Their singing reproduces the style of greeting cants of Catherine's era. Herman’s old acquaintances - Chekalinsky, Surin, Tomsky - gossip about our hero’s state of mind: one believes that his mood is so changeable - “At one time he was gloomy, then he became cheerful” - because he is in love (Chekalinsky thinks so), the other (Surin ) already says with confidence that Herman is obsessed with the desire to learn three cards. Deciding to tease him, they leave.

The hall is emptying. Servants enter to prepare the center of the stage for the performance of the sideshow, a traditional entertainment at balls. Prince Yeletsky and Lisa pass by. The prince is puzzled by Lisa's coldness towards him. He sings about his feelings for her in the famous aria “I love you, I love you immensely.” We don’t hear Lisa’s answer - they leave. Herman enters. He has a note in his hand and he reads it: “After the performance, wait for me in the hall. I have to see you...” Chekalinsky and Surin appear again, with several more people; they tease Herman.

The manager appears and, on behalf of the owner, invites guests to the sideshow performance. It's called "The Sincerity of a Cowgirl." (From the above list of characters and performers of this play in the play, the reader already knows which of the guests at the ball is participating in it). This pastoral stylization of the music of the 18th century (even genuine motifs of Mozart and Bortnyansky slip through). The pastoral is over. Herman notices Lisa; she's wearing a mask. Lisa turns to him (a distorted melody of love sounds in the orchestra: a turning point has occurred in Herman’s consciousness, now he is driven not by love for Lisa, but by the persistent thought of three cards). She gives him the key to the secret door in the garden so that he can enter her house. Lisa is expecting him tomorrow, but Herman intends to be with her today.

An excited manager appears. He reports that the Empress, of course, Catherine, is about to appear at the ball. (It is her appearance that makes it possible to clarify the time of action of the opera: “no later than 1796,” since Catherine II died that year. In general, Tchaikovsky had difficulties with introducing the empress in the opera - the same ones that N.A. Rimsky had previously encountered -Korsakov during the production of “The Woman of Pskov.” The fact is that even in the 40s, Nicholas I, by his highest command, forbade the appearance of the reigning persons of the Romanov house on the opera stage (and this was allowed in dramas and tragedies because it was not allowed); It will be good if the Tsar or Tsarina suddenly sings a song. There is a well-known letter from P.I. Tchaikovsky to the director of the imperial theaters I.A. Vsevolozhsky, in which he, in particular, writes: “I flatter myself with the hope that Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich will settle the issue of the appearance of Catherine by the end of the 3rd picture.") Strictly speaking, this picture ends only with preparations for the meeting of the Empress: “The men take a position of a low court bow. Ladies squat deeply. Pages appear” - this is the author’s last remark in this picture. The choir praises Catherine and exclaims: “Vivat! Vivat!

Picture 4. The countess's bedroom, illuminated by lamps. Herman enters through the secret door. He looks around the room: “Everything is as she told me.” Herman is determined to find out the secret from the old woman. He goes to Lisa's door, but his attention is attracted by the portrait of the Countess; he stops to examine it. Midnight strikes. “Ah, here it is, “Venus of Moscow”!” - he argues, looking at the portrait of the countess (obviously depicted in her youth; Pushkin describes two portraits: one depicted a man of about forty, the other - “a young beauty with an aquiline nose, with combed temples and a rose in her powdered hair”). The sound of footsteps frightens Herman; he hides behind the curtain of the boudoir. The maid runs in and hurriedly lights the candles. Other maids and hangers-on come running after her. The Countess enters, surrounded by bustling maids and hangers-on; their choir sounds (“Our Benefactor”).

Lisa and Masha enter. Lisa lets Masha go, and she realizes that Lisa is waiting for Herman to come to her. Now Masha knows everything: “I chose him as my husband,” Lisa reveals to her. They are leaving.

The hangers-on and maids bring in the Countess. She is wearing a dressing gown and a nightcap. She is put to bed. But she, expressing herself rather strangely (“I’m tired... There’s no urine... I don’t want to sleep in bed”), sits down in a chair; it is covered with pillows. Cursing modern manners, she reminisces about her French life, while she sings (in French) an aria from Grétry's opera Richard the Lionheart. (A funny anachronism, which Tchaikovsky could not have known about - he was simply in in this case did not attach importance to historical accuracy; although, as far as Russian life is concerned, he tried to preserve it. So, this opera was written by Grétry in 1784, and if the action of the opera “The Queen of Spades” dates back to the end of the 18th century and the Countess is now an eighty-year-old old woman, then in the year of the creation of “Richard” she was at least seventy” and the French king (“The King of Me heard,” the countess recalled) would hardly have listened to her singing; thus, if the countess once sang for the king, it was much earlier, long before the creation of “Richard.”)

While performing her aria, the Countess gradually falls asleep. Herman appears from behind cover and confronts the Countess. She wakes up and silently moves her lips in horror. He begs her not to be frightened (the Countess silently, as if in a daze, continues to look at him). Herman asks, begs her to reveal to him the secret of the three cards. He kneels before her. The Countess, straightening up, looks menacingly at Herman. He conjures her. “Old witch! So I’ll make you answer!” - he exclaims and takes out a pistol. The Countess nods her head, raises her hands to shield herself from the shot, and falls dead. Herman approaches the corpse and takes his hand. Only now does he realize what happened - the countess is dead, but he did not find out the secret.

Lisa enters. She sees Herman here, in the Countess's room. She is surprised: what is he doing here? Herman points to the countess’s corpse and exclaims in despair that he did not know the secret. Lisa rushes to the corpse, sobs - she is killed by what happened and, most importantly, that Herman did not need her, but the secret of the cards. "Monster! Murderer! Monster!" - she exclaims (compare with him, German: “Beauty! Goddess! Angel!”). Herman runs away. Lisa, sobbing, falls on the countess's lifeless body.

ACT III

Picture 5. Barracks. Herman's room. Late evening. The moonlight alternately illuminates the room through the window and then disappears. Howl of the wind. Herman is sitting at the table near a candle. He reads Lisa's letter: she sees that he did not want the countess to die, and will be waiting for him on the embankment. If he does not come before midnight, she will have to admit a terrible thought... Herman sinks into a chair in deep thought. He dreams that he hears a choir of singers singing the funeral service for the Countess. He is overcome with horror. He sees footsteps. He runs to the door, but is stopped there by the ghost of the Countess. Herman retreats. The ghost is approaching. The ghost turns to Herman with the words that he came against his will. He orders Herman to save Lisa, marry her and reveals the secret of three cards: three, seven, ace. Having said this, the ghost immediately disappears. A distraught Herman repeats these cards.

Picture 6. Night. Winter Canal. In the background of the scene are the embankment and the Peter and Paul Church, illuminated by the moon. Under the arch, all in black, stands Lisa. She is waiting for Herman and sings her aria, one of the most famous in opera - “Ah, I’m tired, I’m tired!” The clock strikes midnight. Lisa desperately calls for German - he is still not there. Now she is sure that he is a killer. Lisa wants to run, but Herman enters. Lisa is happy: Herman is here, he is not a villain. The end of the torment has come! Herman kisses her. “The end of our painful torment,” they echo each other. But we mustn't hesitate. The clock is running. And Herman calls on Lisa to run away with him. But where? Of course, to the gambling house - “There are piles of gold there for me too, they belong to me alone!” - he assures Lisa. Now Lisa finally understands that Herman is insane. Herman admits that he raised the gun on the “old sorceress.” Now for Lisa he is a killer. Herman repeats three cards in ecstasy, laughs and pushes Lisa away. She, unable to bear it, runs to the embankment and throws herself into the river.

Picture 7. Gambling house. Dinner. Some players play cards. The guests sing: “Let's drink and have fun.” Surin, Chaplitsky, Chekalinsky, Arumov, Tomsky, Yeletsky exchange remarks regarding the game. Prince Yeletsky is here for the first time. He is no longer a groom and hopes that he will be lucky in cards, since he was unlucky in love. Tomsky is asked to sing something. He sings a rather ambiguous song “If only there were dear girls” (its words belong to G.R. Derzhavin). Everyone picks up her last words. In the midst of the game and fun, Herman enters. Yeletsky asks Tomsky to be his second, if necessary. He agrees. Everyone is struck by the strangeness of Herman’s appearance. He asks permission to take part in the game. The game begins. Herman bets on three and wins. He continues the game. Now - seven. And again a win. Herman laughs hysterically. Requires wine. With a glass in his hand, he sings his famous aria “What is our life? - Game! Prince Yeletsky comes into play. This round really looks like a duel: Herman announces an ace, but instead of an ace he has the queen of spades in his hands. At this moment the ghost of the Countess appears. Everyone retreats from Herman. He's terrified. He curses the old woman. In a fit of madness, he stabs himself to death. The ghost disappears. Several people rush to the fallen Herman. He's still alive. Having come to his senses and seeing the prince, he tries to get up. He asks the prince for forgiveness. At the last minute, a bright image of Lisa appears in his mind. The choir of those present sings: “Lord! Forgive him! And rest his rebellious and tormented soul.”

A. Maykapar

Modest Tchaikovsky, ten years younger than his brother Peter, is not known as a playwright outside Russia except for the libretto of Pushkin's The Queen of Spades, set to music in early 1890. The plot of the opera was proposed by the directorate of the Imperial St. Petersburg Theaters, who intended to present a grandiose performance from the era of Catherine II. When Tchaikovsky got to work, he made changes to the libretto and partially wrote the poetic text himself, also introducing poems from poets who were Pushkin’s contemporaries. The text of the scene with Lisa at the Winter Canal belongs entirely to the composer. The most spectacular scenes were shortened by him, but nevertheless they add effectiveness to the opera and form the background for the development of the action. And even these scenes were handled masterfully by Tchaikovsky, an example of which is the text introducing the chorus of glorification of the queen, the final chorus of the first scene of the second act.

Thus, he put a lot of effort into creating an authentic atmosphere of that time. In Florence, where sketches for the opera were written and part of the orchestration was done, Tchaikovsky did not part with the music of the 18th century from the era of the “Queen of Spades” (Grétry, Monsigny, Piccinni, Salieri) and wrote in his diary: “At times it seemed that I was living in the 18th century.” century and that there was nothing further than Mozart.” Of course, Mozart is no longer so young in his music. But besides imitation - with an inevitable share of dryness - of Rococo patterns and the resurrection of expensive gallant-neoclassical forms, the composer relied primarily on his heightened sensibility. His feverish state during the creation of the opera went beyond normal tension. Perhaps in the possessed Hermann, who demands the countess name three cards and thereby dooms himself to death, he saw himself, and in the countess his patron, Baroness von Meck. Their strange, one-of-a-kind relationship, maintained only in letters, a relationship like two disembodied shadows, ended in a break just in 1890.

The unfolding of the increasingly frightening action is distinguished by the ingenious technique of Tchaikovsky, who connects complete, independent, but closely interconnected scenes: minor events (outwardly leading to the side, but in fact necessary for the whole) alternate with key ones that make up the main intrigue. It is possible to distinguish five core themes that the composer uses as Wagnerian leitmotifs. Four are closely related: Hermann's theme (descending, gloomy), the three cards theme (anticipating the Sixth Symphony), Lisa's love theme ("Tristanian", according to Hoffmann's definition) and the theme of fate. The Countess' theme stands apart, based on the repetition of three notes of equal duration.

The score differs in a number of features. The coloring of the first act is close to Carmen (especially the boys' march), but Herman's sincere arioso remembering Lisa stands out here. Then the action suddenly shifts to a drawing room of the late 18th - early 19th centuries, in which a pathetic duet is heard, oscillating between major and minor, with the obligatory accompaniment of flutes. In Herman’s appearance in front of Lisa, the power of fate is felt (and his melody is somewhat reminiscent of Verdi’s “Force of Destiny”); the countess brings in a grave cold, and the ominous thought of three cards poisons the young man’s consciousness. In the scene of his meeting with the old woman, Herman's stormy, desperate recitative and aria, accompanied by angry, repetitive wooden sounds, mark the collapse of the unfortunate man, who loses his mind in the next scene with the ghost, truly expressionist, with echoes of "Boris Godunov" (but with a richer orchestra) . Then follows the death of Lisa: a very gentle, sympathetic melody sounds against a terrible funeral background. Herman's death is less majestic, but not without tragic dignity. This double suicide once again testifies to the decadent romanticism of the composer, which made so many hearts tremble and still constitutes the most popular aspect of his music. However, behind this passionate and tragic picture lies a formal structure inherited from neoclassicism. Tchaikovsky wrote about this well in 1890: “Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann composed their immortal creations exactly as a shoemaker sews boots.” Thus, the skill of the artisan comes first and only then inspiration. As for “The Queen of Spades,” it was immediately accepted by the public as a great success for the composer.

G. Marchesi (translated by E. Greceanii)

History of creation

The plot of Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades” did not immediately interest Tchaikovsky. However, over time, this novel increasingly captured his imagination. Tchaikovsky was especially moved by the scene of Herman's fatal meeting with the Countess. Its deep drama captured the composer, causing a burning desire to write an opera. The work was begun in Florence on February 19, 1890. The opera was created, according to the composer, “with selflessness and pleasure” and was completed in an extremely short time - forty-four days. The premiere took place in St. Petersburg at the Mariinsky Theater on December 7 (19), 1890 and was a huge success.

Soon after the publication of his short story (1833), Pushkin wrote in his diary: “My “Queen of Spades” is in great fashion. Players punt on three, seven, ace.” The popularity of the story was explained not only by the entertaining plot, but also by the realistic reproduction of the types and morals of St. Petersburg society at the beginning XIX century. In the opera's libretto, written by the composer's brother M. I. Tchaikovsky (1850-1916), the content of Pushkin's story is largely rethought. Lisa turned from a poor pupil into the rich granddaughter of a countess. Pushkin's Herman, a cold, calculating egoist, seized only by the thirst for enrichment, appears in Tchaikovsky's music as a man with a fiery imagination and strong passions. The difference in the social status of the characters introduced the theme of social inequality into the opera. With high tragic pathos, it reflects the fate of people in a society subordinated to the merciless power of money. Herman is a victim of this society; the desire for wealth imperceptibly becomes an obsession with him, overshadowing his love for Lisa and leading him to death.

Music

The opera “The Queen of Spades” is one of the greatest works of world realistic art. This musical tragedy amazes with the psychological truthfulness of the reproduction of the thoughts and feelings of the characters, their hopes, suffering and death, the brightness of the pictures of the era, and the intensity of musical and dramatic development. The characteristic features of Tchaikovsky's style received their most complete and perfect expression here.

The orchestral introduction is based on three contrasting musical images: a narrative one, associated with Tomsky’s ballad, an ominous one, depicting the image of the old Countess, and a passionate lyrical one, characterizing Herman’s love for Lisa.

The first act opens bright everyday scene. Choirs of nannies, governesses, and the perky march of boys clearly highlight the drama of subsequent events. Herman’s arioso “I don’t know her name,” sometimes elegiacally tender, sometimes impetuously excited, captures the purity and strength of his feelings. The duet of Herman and Yeletsky confronts the sharply contrasting states of the heroes: Herman’s passionate complaints “Unfortunate day, I curse you” are intertwined with the calm, measured speech of the prince “Happy day, I bless you.” The central episode of the film is the quintet “I’m Scared!” - conveys the gloomy forebodings of the participants. In Tomsky's ballad, the chorus about three mysterious cards sounds ominously. The first picture ends with a stormy thunderstorm scene, against which Herman’s oath sounds.

The second picture falls into two halves - everyday and love-lyrical. The idyllic duet of Polina and Lisa “It’s Evening” is shrouded in light sadness. Polina’s romance “Dear Friends” sounds gloomy and doomed. It is contrasted by the lively dance song “Come on, Little Svetik Mashenka.” The second half of the film opens with Lisa’s arioso “Where do these tears come from” - a heartfelt monologue full of deep feeling. Lisa’s melancholy gives way to an enthusiastic confession: “Oh, listen, night.” Herman’s tenderly sad and passionate arioso “Forgive me, heavenly creature” is interrupted by the appearance of the Countess: the music takes on a tragic tone; sharp, nervous rhythms and ominous orchestral colors emerge. The second picture ends with the affirmation of the bright theme of love. In the third scene (second act), scenes of metropolitan life become the background of the developing drama. The opening chorus in the spirit of welcoming cantatas of Catherine's era is a kind of screensaver of the picture. Prince Yeletsky’s aria “I love you” depicts his nobility and restraint. Pastoral “The Sincerity of the Shepherdess” is a stylization of 18th century music; elegant, graceful songs and dances frame the idyllic love duet of Prilepa and Milovzor. In the finale, at the moment of the meeting of Lisa and Herman, a distorted melody of love sounds in the orchestra: a turning point has occurred in Herman’s consciousness, from now on he is guided not by love, but by the persistent thought of three cards. The fourth scene, central to the opera, is full of anxiety and drama. It begins with an orchestral introduction, in which the intonations of Herman’s love confessions are guessed. The chorus of hangers-on (“Our Benefactor”) and the Countess’s song (a melody from Grétry’s opera “Richard the Lionheart”) are replaced by music of an ominously hidden nature. It contrasts with Herman’s arioso, “If you ever knew the feeling of love,” imbued with a passionate feeling.

At the beginning of the fifth scene (third act), against the background of funeral singing and the howling of a storm, Herman’s excited monologue appears, “All the same thoughts, still the same terrible dream.” The music that accompanies the appearance of the Countess's ghost fascinates with its deathly stillness.

The orchestral introduction of the sixth scene is painted in gloomy tones of doom. The wide, freely flowing melody of Lisa’s aria “Ah, I’m tired, I’m tired” is close to Russian drawn-out songs; the second part of the aria “So it’s true, with a villain” is full of despair and anger. The lyrical duet of Herman and Lisa “Oh yes, the suffering is over” is the only bright episode of the film. It gives way to a scene of Herman’s delirium about gold, remarkable in its psychological depth. The return of the intro music, sounding menacing and inexorable, speaks of the collapse of hopes.

The seventh picture begins with everyday episodes: a drinking song of the guests, Tomsky’s frivolous song “If only dear girls” (to the words of G. R. Derzhavin). With the appearance of Herman, the music becomes nervously excited. The anxiously wary septet “Something is wrong here” conveys the excitement that gripped the players. The rapture of victory and cruel joy can be heard in Herman’s aria “What is our life? Game!". In the dying minute, his thoughts are again turned to Lisa - a reverently tender image of love appears in the orchestra.

M. Druskin

After more than a ten-year period of complex, often contradictory quests, along the way of which there were both bright and interesting discoveries and annoying miscalculations, Tchaikovsky comes to his greatest achievements in operatic creativity, creating “The Queen of Spades,” which is not inferior in strength and depth of expression to his symphonic works. masterpieces like Manfred, the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. He did not work on any of his operas, with the exception of Eugene Onegin, with such ardent enthusiasm, which, by the composer’s own admission, reached “self-forgetfulness.” Tchaikovsky was so deeply captured by the entire atmosphere of the action and the images of the characters in “The Queen of Spades” that he perceived them as real living people. Having completed the draft recording of the opera with feverish speed (The entire work was completed in 44 days - from January 19 to March 3, 1890. The orchestration was completed in June of the same year.), he wrote to his brother Modest Ilyich, the author of the libretto: “... when I got to the death of Herman and the final chorus, I felt so sorry for Herman that I suddenly began to cry a lot<...>It turns out that Herman was not just an excuse for me to write this or that music, but all the time a living person...” In another letter to the same addressee, Tchaikovsky admits: “I experience in other places, for example, in the fourth scene, which I arranged today, such fear, horror and shock that it is impossible for the listener not to experience at least part of it.”

Written based on Pushkin’s story of the same name, Tchaikovsky’s “Queen of Spades” deviates in many ways from literary source: some plot moves have been changed, the characters and actions of the characters have received different coverage. In Pushkin, German is a man of one passion, straightforward, calculating and tough, ready to put his own and other people’s lives on the line to achieve his goal. In Tchaikovsky, he is internally broken, in the grip of contradictory feelings and drives, the tragic irreconcilability of which leads him to inevitable death. The image of Lisa was subjected to a radical rethinking: Pushkin’s ordinary, colorless Lizaveta Ivanovna became a strong and passionate person, selflessly devoted to her feelings, continuing the gallery of pure poetically sublime female images in Tchaikovsky's operas from The Oprichnik to The Enchantress. At the request of the director of the imperial theaters I. A. Vsevolozhsky, the action of the opera was transferred from the 30s of the 19th century to the second half XVIII century, which gave rise to the inclusion of a picture of a magnificent ball in the palace of Catherine’s nobleman with an interlude stylized in the spirit of the “gallant century,” but did not have an impact on the overall flavor of the action and the characters of its main participants. In terms of the richness and complexity of their spiritual world, the sharpness and intensity of experience, these are the composer’s contemporaries, in many ways akin to the heroes psychological novels Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

A compositional, dramatic and intonation analysis of “The Queen of Spades” is given in a number of works devoted to Tchaikovsky’s work as a whole or to its individual types. Therefore, we will dwell only on some of the most important, most characteristic features. “The Queen of Spades” is the most symphonic of Tchaikovsky’s operas: the basis of its dramatic composition is the consistent end-to-end development and interweaving of three constant themes, which are the bearers of the main driving forces actions. The semantic aspect of these themes is similar to the relationship between the three main thematic sections of the Fourth and Fifth symphonies. The first of them, the dry and harsh theme of the Countess, which is based on a short motive of three sounds, easily amenable to various changes, can be compared in meaning with the themes of rock in the composer’s symphonic works. In the course of development, this motif undergoes rhythmic compression and expansion, its intervallic composition and modal coloring changes, but with all these transformations, the formidable “knocking” rhythm, which constitutes its main characteristic, is preserved.

Using the words of Tchaikovsky, spoken in another connection, we can say that this is “grain”, “certainly main idea"of the entire work. This theme serves not so much as an individual characteristic of the image, but as the embodiment of a mysterious, inexorably fatal principle that weighs on the fate of the central characters of the opera - Herman and Lisa. It is omnipresent, intertwined both in the orchestral fabric and in the vocal parts of the characters (for example, Herman’s arioso “If you ever knew” from the painting in the Countess’s bedroom). At times it takes on a delusional, fantastically distorted appearance as a reflection of the persistent thought about three cards lodged in Herman’s sick brain: at the moment when the ghost of the dead Countess appears to him and names them, all that remains of the theme are three slowly descending sounds in whole tones. The sequence of three such segments forms a complete whole-tone scale, which has served in Russian music since Glinka as a means of depicting the inanimate, mysterious and terrible. This theme is given a special flavor by its characteristic timbre coloring: as a rule, it sounds in the dull low register of a clarinet, bass clarinet or bassoon, and only in the final scene, before Herman’s fatal loss, is it darkly and menacingly intoned by brass and string basses as an inevitable sentence of fate.

Closely related to the theme of the Countess is another important theme - three cards. The similarity is manifested both in the motivic structure, consisting of three units of three sounds each, and in the immediate intonational proximity of individual melodic turns.

Even before its appearance in Tomsky’s ballad, the theme of the three cards, in a slightly modified form, sounds in the mouth of Herman (the “output” arioso “I don’t know her name”), emphasizing his doom from the very beginning.

In the process of further development, the topic takes on different shape and it sounds sometimes tragic, sometimes mournfully lyrically, and some of its turns can be heard even in recitative remarks.

The third, widely chanted lyrical theme of love with an excited sequential rise to the melodic peak and a smooth, undulating descending second half contrasts with both previous ones. It receives especially wide development in the scene of Herman and Lisa that concludes the second picture, reaching an enthusiastic, rapturously passionate sound. Subsequently, as Herman becomes increasingly possessed by the crazy thought of three cards, the theme of love recedes into the background, only occasionally appearing in the form of brief fragments, and only in the final scene of Herman’s death, dying with the name of Lisa on his lips, again sounds clearly and unclouded. There comes a moment of catharsis, purification - the terrible delusional visions dissipate, and the bright feeling of love triumphs over all the horrors and nightmares.

A high degree of symphonic generality is combined in “The Queen of Spades” with bright and colorful stage action, replete with sharp contrasts, changes of light and shadow. Acute conflict situations alternate with distracting background episodes of an everyday nature, and development proceeds in the direction of increasing psychological concentration and thickening of gloomy, ominous tones. Genre elements are concentrated mainly in the first three scenes of the opera. A kind of screensaver for the main action is a scene of festivities in the Summer Garden, children's games and careless chatter of nannies, nurses and governesses, against the background of which the gloomy figure of Herman stands out, completely absorbed in thoughts about his hopeless love. The idyllic scene of the entertainment of society young ladies at the beginning of the second picture helps to highlight the sad thoughtfulness and hidden spiritual anxiety of Lisa, who is haunted by the thought of a mysterious stranger, and Polina’s romance, with its gloomy coloring contrasting with the pastoral duet of two friends, is perceived as a direct premonition of the tragic end awaiting the heroine (As is known, according to the original plan, this romance was to be sung by Liza herself, and the composer then handed it over to Polina for purely practical theatrical reasons, in order to provide the performer of this part with an independent solo number.).

The third painting of the ball is distinguished by its special decorative splendor, a number of episodes of which are deliberately stylized by the composer in the spirit of 18th-century music. It is known that when composing the interlude “The Sincerity of the Shepherdess” and the final welcoming chorus, Tchaikovsky resorted to direct borrowings from the works of composers of that time. This brilliant picture of the ceremonial celebration is contrasted by two short scenes of Herman, pursued by Surin and Chekalinsky, and his meeting with Lisa, where fragments of the themes of three cards and love sound anxiously and confusedly. Moving the action forward, they directly prepare the central picture in its dramatic significance in the Countess's bedroom.

In this scene, remarkable in terms of dramatic integrity and steadily increasing power of emotional tension, all lines of action are tied into one tight knot and main character comes face to face with his fate, personified in the image of the old Countess. Sensitively responding to the slightest shifts in everything that happens on stage, the music develops at the same time as a single continuous flow in the close interaction of vocal and orchestral-symphonic elements. Except for the song from Grétry’s opera “Richard the Lionheart”, put by the composer into the mouth of the falling asleep Countess (Many times attention was drawn to the anachronism admitted by Tchaikovsky in this case: the opera “Richard the Lionheart” was written in 1784, that is, approximately at the same time when the action of “The Queen of Spades” takes place and therefore could not be associated with memories of the Countess’s youth. But against the general background of the opera’s music, it is perceived as something distant, forgotten, and in this sense it corresponds to the artistic task set; as for historical authenticity, it apparently did not concern the composer very much.), then in this picture there are no completed solo vocal episodes. By flexibly using various types of musical recitation from monotonous recitation on one sound or short excited cries to more melodious constructions approaching ariatic singing, the composer very subtly and expressively conveys the spiritual movements of the characters.

Dramatically climax the fourth picture is the tragically ending “duel” of Herman and the Countess (In this scene, the original Pushkin text was preserved by the librettist almost without changes, which Tchaikovsky noted with particular satisfaction. L.V. Karagicheva, expressing a number of interesting observations on the relationship between word and music in Herman’s monologue, states that “Tchaikovsky translated into the language of music not only the meaningful meaning, but also many of the structural and expressive means of Pushkin’s text.” This episode can serve as one of the most remarkable examples of the sensitive implementation of speech intonation in Tchaikovsky’s vocal melody.). This scene cannot be called a dialogue in the true sense, since one of its participants does not utter a single word - to all Herman’s pleas and threats, the Countess remains silent, but the orchestra speaks for her. The anger and indignation of the old aristocrat give way to a stupor of horror, and the “gurgling” passages of the clarinet and bassoon (which are then joined by the flute) convey with almost naturalistic imagery the dying shudders of a lifeless body.

The feverish excitement of the emotional atmosphere is combined in this picture with great internal completeness of form, achieved both by the consistent symphonic development of the main themes of the opera, and by elements of thematic and tonal reprise. The expanded precursor is a large fifty-bar structure at the beginning of the picture with restlessly soaring and then mournfully sinking phrases of muted violins against the backdrop of a dully vibrating dominant organ point in the violas. The long-accumulated harmonic instability conveys Herman’s feelings of anxiety and involuntary fear of what awaits him. The dominant harmony does not receive resolution within this section, being replaced by a number of modulating moves (B minor, A minor, C sharp minor). Only in the stormy, rapid Vivace that concludes the fourth picture does a steadily sounding tonic triad of its main key of F-sharp minor appear and the same alarming melodic phrase is again heard in conjunction with the theme of the three cards, expressing Herman’s despair and Lisa’s horror at what happened.

The following picture, imbued with a gloomy atmosphere of insane delirium and terrible, chilling visions, is distinguished by the same symphonic integrity and intensity of development: night, barracks, Herman alone on duty. The leading role belongs to the orchestra, Herman's part is limited to individual cues of a recitative nature. The funeral singing of a church choir coming from afar, the sounds of a signal military fanfare, “whistling” passages of high wooden and strings, conveying the howling of the wind outside the window - all this merges into one ominous picture, evoking alarming forebodings. The horror engulfing Herman reaches its climax with the appearance of the ghost of the dead Countess, accompanied by her leitmotif, at first dull, hidden, and then sounding with increasing force in conjunction with the theme of the three cards. In the final section of this picture, an explosion of panic horror gives way to a sudden numbness, and the distraught Herman automatically, as if hypnotized, repeats in one sound the words of the Countess “Three, seven, ace!”, while in the orchestra the transformed theme of three sounds just as smoothly and dispassionately cards with elements of an enlarged fret.

Following this, the action quickly and steadily moves towards a catastrophic denouement. Some delay is caused by the scene at the Winter Canal, which contains vulnerable moments not only from a dramatic, but also from a musical point of view (It has been noted, not without reason, by various authors that Lisa’s aria in this film does not quite correspond stylistically to the general melodic-intonation structure of her part.). But the composer needed it “so that the viewer would know what happened to Lisa,” whose fate would have remained unclear without this. That is why he so stubbornly defended this picture despite the objections of Modest Ilyich and Laroche.

After three “night” paintings, gloomy in color, the last, seventh takes place in bright light, the source of which is, however, not the daytime sun, but the restless flickering of candles in a gambling house. The chorus of players “Let’s sing and have fun,” interrupted by short, abrupt remarks from the participants in the game, then the reckless “Greek” song “This is how they gathered on rainy days” creates an atmosphere of frenzied excitement in which Herman’s last desperate game takes place, ending in loss and suicide. The Countess's theme, emerging in the orchestra, achieves a powerful, menacing sound here: only with the death of Herman does the terrible obsession disappear and the opera ends with the theme of love quietly and tenderly sounding in the orchestra.

Tchaikovsky's great creation became a new word not only in the work of the composer himself, but also in the development of the entire Russian opera of the last century. None of the Russian composers, except Mussorgsky, managed to achieve such an irresistible power of dramatic impact and depth of penetration into the most hidden corners of the human soul, to reveal the complex world of the subconscious, unconsciously driving our actions and deeds. It is no coincidence that this opera aroused such keen interest among a number of representatives of the new young artistic movements, emerging at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Twenty-year-old Alexander Benois, after the premiere of “The Queen of Spades,” was overcome, as he later recalled, by “a kind of frenzy of delight.” “There is no doubt,” he wrote, “that the author himself knew that he had managed to create something beautiful and unique, something in which his whole soul, his whole worldview was expressed.”<...>He had the right to expect that the Russian people would thank him for this<...>As for me, my delight in “The Queen of Spades” included precisely this feeling thanks. Through these sounds, a lot of the mysterious things that I saw around me were really revealed to me.” It is known that A. A. Blok, M. A. Kuzmin and other poets of the early 20th century were interested in “The Queen of Spades”. The impact of this opera by Tchaikovsky on the development of Russian art was strong and profound; a number of literary and pictorial (to a lesser extent musical) works directly reflected the impressions of acquaintance with it. And to this day “The Queen of Spades” remains one of the unsurpassed pinnacles of the classical operatic heritage.

Yu. Keldysh

Discography: CD - Dante. Dir. Lynching, German (Khanaev), Lisa (Derzhinskaya), Countess (Petrova), Tomsky (Baturin), Eletsky (Selivanov), Polina (Obukhova) - Philips. Dir. Gergiev, German (Grigoryan), Lisa (Guleghina), Countess (Arkhipova), Tomsky (Putilin), Eletsky (Chernov), Polina (Borodina) - RCA Victor. Dir. Ozawa, German (Atlantov), Lisa (Freni), Countess (Forrester), Tomsky (Leiferkus), Yeletsky (Hvorostovsky), Polina (Catherine Chesinski).

P.I. Tchaikovsky opera "The Queen of Spades"

The basis for “The Queen of Spades” by P.I. Tchaikovsky served story of the same name A.S. Pushkin. This exciting and tragic love story between an innocent girl and a passionate officer who became a victim of card gambling was written by the composer in just 44 days. The work is considered the pinnacle of the composer's operatic dramaturgy, because in terms of the depth and strength of the main characters' emotions, the intensity of passions and the irresistible power of dramatic impact, it has no equal in his work.

Brief summary of the opera Tchaikovsky "Queen of Spades" and many interesting facts Read about this work on our page.

Characters		Description
Hermann	tenor	officer, main character
Lisa	soprano	granddaughter of the Countess
Tomsk	baritone	count, friend of Herman, grandson of the Countess
Yeletsky	baritone	Prince, Liza's fiancé
Countess	mezzo-soprano	eighty year old woman
Pauline	contralto	Lisa's friend
Chekalinsky	tenor	officer
Surin	bass	officer
Masha	soprano	housemaid

Summary of “The Queen of Spades”

Petersburg at the end of the 18th century. Poor young officer Herman is madly in love with a beautiful stranger and longs to find out who she is. Soon he is told that his heart was won by the granddaughter of the rich old Countess - Lisa, who very soon will become the legal wife of Prince Yeletsky. Herman’s friend, Count Tomsky, informs him that the old woman has unique information - she knows the secret of “three cards”, thanks to which she was once able to recoup and return a card loss.

Lisa was inflamed with mutual feelings for the officer. Herman swears that they will be together, or he will be forced to die. He dreams of getting rich quickly in order to marry his beloved, and only the secret of the Countess's card winnings can help him. At night, he sneaks into her bedroom and begs her to reveal the secret of the “three cards,” but the “old witch,” frightened by an intruder with a pistol, dies and takes the secret with her.

Lisa makes an appointment for Herman on the embankment, but he is delayed. And all because at this time the ghost of the Countess appears in his room. The old woman voices the secret of the “three cards” - three, seven and ace, and asks the officer to take Lisa as his wife. The ghost dissolves into thin air, and Herman, like a madman, tirelessly repeats this combination. He runs to meet Lisa, but pushes her away - he is no longer obsessed with love, but with passion. In despair, the girl throws herself into the river.

Meanwhile, Herman hurriedly heads to the gambling house and places bets on the cards named by the ghost. Luck was on his side twice, but when he bets on the ace, he ends up with the queen of spades in his hand instead. He showers the Countess with curses and plunges a dagger into his heart.

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Interesting facts

P.I. Tchaikovsky wrote the opera in Florence in just 44 days.
To flawlessly perform the part of Herman in all seven scenes, the author needed a truly skillful and resilient performer. Selection of P.I. Tchaikovsky fell on the famous tenor Nikolai Figner, whose abilities the author relied on while writing the music. The success of The Queen of Spades was truly stunning. After a successful premiere at the Mariinsky Theater, an enthusiastic Tchaikovsky wrote: “Figner and the St. Petersburg Orchestra have created real miracles!” Twelve days later, “The Queen of Spades” was greeted with no less enthusiasm in Kyiv.
The first foreign premiere of The Queen of Spades was performed in Prague in 1892. The conductor was Adolf Cech. This was followed by the following premieres: under the direction Gustav Mahler in Vienna in 1902 and New York (in German) the same year. The first performance of the opera in Great Britain took place in 1915 in London.
The events of Pushkin's "Queen of Spades", as we know, are based on real events - the story of Natalya Petrovna Golitsina, one of the most influential and richest princesses of the 19th century. Her grandson lost heavily at cards and turned to her for help - to borrow money. But the grandmother instead revealed a secret to her grandson, which allowed him to get even.
This mystical story about three cards - three, seven and ace - somehow miraculously influenced everyone who touched it in any way. Witnesses to the last days of the princess claimed that shortly before her death they saw the ghost of a lonely officer near the mansion. It was 1837.
In this combination of numbers - 1837, making up the year of death of the princess and Pushkin himself, the same mysterious numbers - 3, 7, 1 - were combined in the most incomprehensible way. And in the last hour of Tchaikovsky’s life, as his doctor claimed, the composer saw the same ghost “ lone officer." Mysticism, and that’s all.

Take a closer look at the structure of the opera and its title: 3 acts, 7 scenes, “The Queen of Spades.” Doesn't remind you of anything?
This opera is considered one of the most mystical in the world musical theater. Many are convinced that it is she who is to blame for many of the failures of her creators, as well as those who performed her.
In this work, great importance is attached to the number “three”; it seems to be endowed with magical meaning and is found literally everywhere. First of all, these are the same three cards. According to Chekalinsky, Herman’s heart has three sins. Herman himself is guilty of just three deaths - the Countess's, Lisa's and his own. The musical fabric of the entire work is dominated by three themes - rock, love and three cards.
Some biographers are inclined to believe that Tchaikovsky’s refusal to work on this order was due to the fact that he was simply afraid of the plot. According to some reports, he agreed to compose the opera only on one condition - if the libretto differed significantly from the original. That is why he made such active changes to all dramatic components of the work.

Directors who wanted to bring the libretto closer to Pushkin's text found themselves in serious trouble. The most striking example is Vsevolod Meyerhold. As mentioned earlier, he ordered a new libretto and even staged this opera at the Kirov Theater. However, after this he did not live long - the director was arrested and sent to death.
Several more works for musical theater were written based on Pushkin’s work, but they are not at all popular - these are the operetta by Franz Suppe (1864) and the opera by J. Halévy (1850).
Choreographers, for example, Roland Petit, also turned to this plot. He created a ballet for N. Tsiskaridze at the request of the management Bolshoi Theater, however, I was afraid to take music from the opera and preferred it Sixth Symphony . But the unexpected happened - all the ballerinas refused to dance the Old Countess, only Ielze Liepa agreed. The ballet premiered in 2001.
The original score of the opera is kept in capsule form at the Mariinsky Theater.

Popular arias from opera

Herman's aria “What is our life? Game!" - listen

Tomsky’s song “If only there were dear girls” - listen

Arioso by Lisa “Where do these tears come from” - listen

Arioso by German "I don't know her name" - listen

History of creation

The idea of staging an opera based on Pushkin’s mysterious story first arose from the director of the imperial theaters, I. A. Vsevolozhsky. For several years he was inspired by this idea and even independently outlined the script and thought through the stage effects. In 1885, he began to actively search for a composer who could bring this idea to life. Among the candidates were A. A. Villamov and N. S. Klenovsky. Two years later Vsevolozhsky turned to P.I. Tchaikovsky , however, he was refused - the composer was not at all attracted to this plot. In 1888, his younger brother, Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky, began working on the libretto, and he created it for Klenovsky. However, the maestro eventually refused the job, and Vsevolozhsky again turned to Pyotr Ilyich. This time he was more persistent, and asked not only to write an opera, but to finish it for the new season. At this time, Tchaikovsky was just planning to leave Russia and plunge headlong into work. That is why he agreed and went to Florence to work.

The first fragments of The Queen of Spades appeared on January 19, 1890. The work was written very quickly - the score of the opera was published on April 6, and the score - already on June 8. While creating his masterpiece, the composer actively changed the plot lines of the libretto and composed words for some scenes. As a result, the plot of the opera acquired a number of differences from its original source. Pushkin's story was transformed into a poetic canvas, which very organically absorbed the poems of other poets - G.R. Derzhavina, P.M. Karabanova, K.N. Batyushkova and V.A. Zhukovsky. The main characters of the work have also changed. So, Lisa turned from a poor pupil of a wealthy Countess into her granddaughter. Pushkin's Hermann was of German descent, but Tchaikovsky does not mention a word about this. In addition, his last name becomes a first name and loses one letter “n” - his name is German. Liza's future husband, Prince Yeletsky, is not with Alexander Sergeevich. Count Tomsky in the story of the Russian literary genius is the grandson of the Countess, but in the opera he is a complete stranger to her. The lives of the main characters develop differently - according to the plot of the book, Herman loses his mind and goes to the hospital, Lisa forgets about him and marries someone else. In the opera, lovers die. And finally, the duration of this tragic story also changed - in the original source the events unfold during the time of Alexander I, but in its musical version - during the reign of Empress Catherine II.

The first performance of the opera took place at the Mariinsky Theater on December 19, 1890, conducted that evening by E. Napravnik. Tchaikovsky actively participated in the preparation of the premiere. Pyotr Ilyich assumed that the success would be incredible, and he was not mistaken. The audience demanded an encore of individual numbers, and the composer was called to the stage countless times. And even the fact that Pushkin’s work was so greatly rethought did not bother even the zealous “Pushkinists” at all - they gave the Russian genius a standing ovation.

Production history

12 days after the premiere, “The Queen of Spades” was held in Kyiv with no less success. But in Moscow, at the Bolshoi Theater, the opera was seen only at the beginning of November 1891. After this, Pyotr Ilyich's operatic masterpiece began to appear on European and American theater stages. The first country to show the opera was the Czech Republic - this happened in the fall of 1892. Four years later, The Queen of Spades conquered the Vienna State Opera. In 1910, the play was staged in New York. The opera was brought to Great Britain in 1915 and staged in London.

All these performances, although they were shown in different languages, were generally interpreted by the production directors in a classical manner. However, there were also those brave souls who tried to return the plot to the story. Among these we can name the production of 1935, directed by V. Meyerhold. In this version, shown on the stage of the Maly opera house, there was a completely different libretto, a different location and was absent love line. However, this production did not last long on stage.

« Queen of Spades"and today remains one of the most perfect examples of its genre in the world opera classics. Thanks to its incredible depth, exciting content, beautiful music and mystical aura, this opera has been living on the stages of world theaters for more than 120 years, captivating audiences time after time. In addition, it continues to occupy the minds of researchers all over the planet, because it still contains many unsolved mysteries and undeciphered symbols.

Video: watch the opera “The Queen of Spades” by Tchaikovsky

ACT ONE

Scene one

Petersburg. There are a lot of people walking in the Summer Garden, children playing under the supervision of nannies and governesses. Surin and Chekalinsky talk about their friend German: he spends all night long, gloomy and silent, in a gambling house, but does not touch the cards. Count Tomsky is also surprised by Herman’s strange behavior. Herman reveals a secret to him: he is passionately in love with a beautiful stranger, but she is rich, noble, and cannot belong to him. Prince Yeletsky joins his friends. He announces his upcoming marriage. Accompanied by the old Countess, Lisa approaches, in whom Herman recognizes his chosen one; in despair, he becomes convinced that Lisa is Yeletsky’s fiancée.

At the sight of the gloomy figure of Herman, his gaze blazing with passion, ominous forebodings overwhelm the Countess and Lisa. Tomsky dispels the painful numbness. He tells a secular joke about the Countess. In her youth, she once lost her entire fortune in Paris. At the cost of a love date, the young beauty learned the secret of the three cards and, betting on them, returned her loss. Surin and Chekalinsky decide to play a joke on German - they invite him to learn the secret of the three cards from the old woman. But Herman’s thoughts are absorbed in Lisa. A thunderstorm begins. In a violent outburst of passion, Herman vows to achieve Lisa’s love or die.

Scene two

Lisa's room. It's getting dark. The girls entertain their saddened friend with a Russian dance. Left alone, Lisa tells the night that she loves Herman. Suddenly Herman appears on the balcony. He passionately confesses his love to Lisa. A knock on the door interrupts the date. The old Countess enters. Hiding on the balcony, Herman remembers the secret of the three cards. After the Countess leaves, the thirst for life and love awakens in him with renewed vigor. Lisa is overwhelmed by the response.

ACT TWO

Scene three

A ball in the house of a rich metropolitan dignitary. A royal person arrives at the ball. Everyone greets the empress with enthusiasm. Prince Yeletsky, alarmed by the bride’s coldness, assures her of his love and devotion.

Herman is among the guests. The disguised Chekalinsky and Surin continue to make fun of their friend; their mysterious whispers about magic cards have a depressing effect on his frustrated imagination. The performance begins - the pastoral “The Sincerity of the Shepherdess”. At the end of the performance, Herman runs into the old Countess; again the thought of the wealth that three cards promise takes possession of Herman. Having received the keys to the secret door from Lisa, he decides to find out the secret from the old woman.

Scene four

Night. The Countess's empty bedroom. Herman enters; he peers with excitement at the portrait of the Countess in her youth, but, hearing approaching steps, hides. The Countess returns, accompanied by her hangers-on. Dissatisfied with the ball, she indulges in memories of the past and falls asleep. Suddenly Herman appears in front of her. He begs to reveal the secret of the three cards. The Countess is silent in horror. Enraged Herman threatens with a pistol; the frightened old woman falls dead. Herman is in despair. Close to madness, he does not hear the reproaches of Lisa, who came running in response to the noise. Only one thought dominates him: the Countess is dead, and he has not learned the secret.

ACT THREE

Scene five

Herman's room in the barracks. Late evening. Herman rereads Lisa’s letter: she asks him to come at midnight for a date. Herman again relives what happened, and pictures of the death and funeral of the old woman arise in his imagination. In the howling of the wind he hears funeral singing. Herman is terrified. He wants to run, but he sees the ghost of the Countess. She tells him the treasured cards: “Three, seven and ace.” Herman repeats them as if in delirium.

Scene six

Winter groove. Here Lisa must meet with Herman. She wants to believe that her beloved is not guilty of the death of the Countess. The tower clock strikes midnight. Lisa is losing her last hope. Herman arrives very late: neither Lisa nor her love no longer exists for him. In his distraught brain there is only one picture: a gambling house where he will get riches.
In a fit of madness, he pushes Lisa away from him and shouts: “To the gambling house!” - runs away.
Lisa throws herself into the river in despair.

Scene seven

Gambling house hall. Herman puts two cards, called Countess, one after another, and wins. Everyone is stunned. Intoxicated with victory, Herman puts all the winnings on the line. Prince Yeletsky accepts Herman's challenge. Herman announces an ace, but... instead of an ace, he has the queen of spades in his hands. In a frenzy, he looks at the map, in it he imagines the devilish grin of the old Countess. In a fit of madness, he commits suicide. At the last minute, a bright image of Lisa appears in Herman’s mind. With her name on his lips he dies.

In 1840, a son was born into the family of the head of the Kama-Votkinsk plant, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, a well-known mining specialist in his time, who was named Peter.

The boy grew up sensitive, receptive, impressionable. When he was four years old, his father brought an orchestra (mechanical organ) from St. Petersburg, and the music of Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti began to sound in distant Votkinsk...

The family was financially secure. The future composer was able to receive a solid home education. Since childhood, Pyotr Ilyich spoke fluent French, read a lot and even wrote poetry. Music was also included in the home activities. Alexandra Andreevna Tchaikovskaya played well and sang well herself. Tchaikovsky especially liked to listen to Alyabyev’s “The Nightingale” performed by his mother.

The childhood years lived in the city of Votkinsk remained in the composer’s memory for the rest of his life. But to Tchaikovsky

turned eight years old, and the family from Votkinsk moved to Moscow, from Moscow to St. Petersburg, and then to Alapaevsk, where Ilya Petrovich received a position as plant manager.

In the summer of 1850, he sent his wife and two children (including the future composer) to St. Petersburg.

At the St. Petersburg School of Law, Tchaikovsky studies general disciplines and specializes in jurisprudence. Musical classes also continue here; he takes piano lessons and sings in the school choir, whose director was the outstanding Russian choral conductor G. E. Lomakin.

Attending symphony concerts and the theater also played an important role in Tchaikovsky's musical development. All his life he considered the operas of Mozart (Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute), Glinka (Ivan Susanin) and Weber (The Magic Shooter) to be unsurpassed examples of operatic art.

Common artistic interests brought Tchaikovsky closer to many students of the school; Some of my friends from the school later became enthusiastic admirers of the composer. Among them is the poet A. N. Apukhtin, whose poems Tchaikovsky later wrote wonderful romances.

Every year the young lawyer became convinced that his true calling was music. He began composing at the age of fourteen, and at seventeen he wrote his first romance “My genius, my angel, my friend” (to the words of A. A. Fet).

By the time he graduated from college (in 1859), with all his soul,

All his thoughts were in art. But his dreams were not yet destined to come true. In winter, Tchaikovsky took the place of junior assistant to the chief clerk, and the dismal years of service in one of the departments of the Ministry of Justice began to flow.

In his career, Tchaikovsky achieved little. “They made me into an official, and even a bad one,” he wrote to his sister.

In 1861, Tchaikovsky began attending public music classes of Anton Grigorievich Rubinstein, the great Russian pianist and outstanding composer, founder of Russia's first conservatory. A.G. Rubinstein friendly advised Tchaikovsky to devote his entire life to his favorite work.

Tchaikovsky did just that: he left the service. Also in 1863, Tchaikovsky’s father resigned; he could no longer help his son, and the young musician experienced a life full of hardships. He lacked funds even for the most necessary expenses, and while studying at the St. Petersburg Conservatory (which was opened in 1862), he gave lessons and accompanied in concerts.

At the conservatory, Tchaikovsky studied with A. G. Rubinstein and N. I. Zaremba, studying music theory and composition. Among the students, Tchaikovsky stood out for his solid preparation, exceptional performance, and most importantly, creative determination. He did not limit himself to mastering the conservatory course and studied a lot himself, studying the works of Schumann, Berlioz, Wagner, and Serov.

The years of study of the young Tchaikovsky at the conservatory coincided with the period of social upsurge of the 60s. The democratic ideals of that time were reflected in the work of the young Tchaikovsky. Starting from his first symphonic work - the overture to A. N. Ostrovsky's drama "The Thunderstorm" (1864) - Tchaikovsky forever connects his art with folk song and fiction. In this work, for the first time, the main theme of Tchaikovsky’s art is put forward - the theme of man’s struggle against the inexorable forces of evil. This theme in Tchaikovsky's major works is resolved in two ways: the hero either dies in the fight against opposing forces, or overcomes the obstacles that arise in his path. In both cases, the outcome of the conflict shows the strength, courage and beauty of the human soul. Thus, the features of Tchaikovsky’s tragic worldview are completely devoid of the features of decadence and pessimism.

In the year he graduated from the conservatory (1865), Tchaikovsky's dream came true: having completed his musical education with honors, he received a diploma and the title of free artist. For the graduation ceremony of the conservatory, on the advice of A.G. Rubinstein, he wrote music for the hymn of the great German poet Schiller “Ode to Joy.” That same year, the orchestra conducted by Johann Strauss, who came on tour to Russia, publicly performed “ Character dances» Tchaikovsky.

But perhaps the happiest and most significant event for Tchaikovsky at that time was his

meeting with Nikolai Grigorievich Rubinstein, brother of the director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.

They met in St. Petersburg - Tchaikovsky, a still little-known musician, and N. G. Rubinstein, a famous conductor, teacher, pianist and musical and public figure.

Since that time, N. G. Rubinstein has closely followed Tchaikovsky’s work, rejoices at every new achievement of the young composer, and skillfully promotes his works. Having taken up the organization of the Moscow Conservatory, N. G. Rubinstein invited Tchaikovsky to take the position of teacher of music theory there.

From this time begins the Moscow period of P. I. Tchaikovsky’s life.

Tchaikovsky's first major work created in Moscow was the first symphony, entitled "Winter Dreams" (1866). Here are pictures of nature: winter road, “foggy edge”, blizzard. But Tchaikovsky does not simply reproduce scenes of nature; First of all, he conveys the emotional state that these paintings evoke. In Tchaikovsky's works, the image of nature is usually fused with a subtle, heartfelt revelation of the inner world of man. This unity in the depiction of the natural world and the world of human experiences is also clearly expressed in Tchaikovsky’s cycle of piano pieces “The Seasons” (1876). Outstanding German

pianist and conductor G. von Bülow once called Tchaikovsky “a true poet in sounds.” Von Bülow's words can serve as an epigraph to the first symphony and The Seasons.

Tchaikovsky's life in Moscow took place in an atmosphere of fruitful communication with major writers and artists. Tchaikovsky visited the “Artistic Circle”, where, in a circle of discerning artists, the great Russian playwright A. N. Ostrovsky read his new works; there were also the poet A. N. Pleshcheev, the wonderful artist of the Maly Theater P. M. Sadovsky, the Polish violinist G. Wieniawski, and N. G. Rubinstein.

The members of the “Artistic Circle” passionately loved Russian folk song, were enthusiastically engaged in collecting, performing, and studying it. Among them, first of all, one should name A. N. Ostrovsky, who put a lot of effort into promoting Russian folk songs on the stage of the drama theater.

A. N. Ostrovsky became closely acquainted with Tchaikovsky. The results of this friendship soon showed: in 1868-1869, Tchaikovsky prepared a collection that included fifty of the most popular Russian folk songs for piano 4 hands.

TO folk songs Tchaikovsky repeatedly turned to this in his work. The Russian song “Vanya was sitting on the sofa” was developed by Tchaikovsky in the first quartet (1871), the Ukrainian songs “Crane” and “Come out, Ivanka, sleep off the spring fly” - in the second symphony (1872) and in the first concert for piano and orchestra (1875).

The range of Tchaikovsky's works in which he uses folk melodies is so wide that to list them would mean to quote big list works of various musical forms and genres.

Tchaikovsky, who so deeply and lovingly appreciated folk song, drew from it that broad melodiousness that marked all of his work.

Being a deeply national composer, Tchaikovsky was always interested in the culture of other countries. Ancient French songs formed the basis of his opera “The Maid of Orleans”, motives of Italian street songs inspired the creation of “Italian Capriccio”, the well-known duet “My dear friend” from the opera “The Queen of Spades” is a masterfully re-intonated Czech folk song “I have there was a dove."

Another source of the melodiousness of Tchaikovsky’s works is his own experience of romance. Tchaikovsky's first seven romances, written by the master's confident hand, were created in November - December 1869: “A Tear is Trembling” and “Don’t Believe, My Friend” (words by A.K. Tolstoy), “Why” and “No, only the one who knew" (to poems by Heine and Goethe in translations by L. A. Mey), "Forget so soon" (words by A. N. Apukhtin), "Both painful and sweet" (words by E. P. Rostopchina), "Not a word , oh my friend” (words by A. N. Pleshcheev). Throughout his creative career, Tchaikovsky wrote more than a hundred romances; they reflected bright feelings, passionate emotion, sorrow, and philosophical reflections.

Inspiration drew Tchaikovsky to various areas of musical creativity. This led to one phenomenon that arose naturally due to the unity and organic nature of the composer’s creative style: often in his operas and instrumental works one can catch the intonations of his romances and, on the contrary, in the romances one can feel operatic ariosity and symphonic breadth.

If Russian song was a source of truth and beauty for Tchaikovsky, if it constantly updated his works, then the relationship between genres, their mutual penetration contributed to the constant improvement of mastery.

The largest work that nominated the twenty-nine-year-old Tchaikovsky among the first composers in Russia was the symphonic overture “Romeo and Juliet” (1869). The plot of this composition was suggested to Tchaikovsky by M. A. Balakirev, who then headed the community of young composers, which went down in music history under the name “The Mighty Handful.”

Tchaikovsky and the Kuchkists are two channels of the same current. Each of the composers - be it N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, A. P. Borodin, M. A. Balakirev, M. P. Mussorgsky or P. I. Tchaikovsky - made a unique contribution to the art of his era. And when we talk about Tchaikovsky, we cannot help but recall Balakirev’s circle, the commonality of their creative interests and recognition of each other. But among the links connecting the Kuchkists with Tchaikovsky, program music is perhaps the most significant link.

It is known that, in addition to the program for the symphonic overture “Romeo and Juliet,” Balakirev proposed to Tchaikovsky a plot for the symphony “Manfred” (after Byron), and both works are dedicated to Balakirev. “The Tempest,” Tchaikovsky’s symphonic fantasy on a Shakespearean theme, was created on the advice of V.V. Stasov and dedicated to him. Among Tchaikovsky’s most famous instrumental works is the symphonic fantasy “Francesca da Rimini,” which is based on the fifth canto of Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” Thus, Tchaikovsky's three greatest creations in the field of program music owe their appearance to Balakirev and Stasov.

The experience of creating major program works enriched Tchaikovsky's art. It is significant that Tchaikovsky's non-program music has all the fullness of figurative and emotional expressiveness, as if it had plots.

Following the symphony “Winter Dreams” and the symphonic overture “Romeo and Juliet” are the operas “The Voevoda” (1868), “Ondine” (1869), “The Oprichnik” (1872), and “The Blacksmith Vakula” (1874). Tchaikovsky himself was not satisfied with his first works for the opera stage. The score of “The Voivode,” for example, was destroyed by him; it was restored according to the surviving batches and delivered already in Soviet times. The opera “Ondine” is lost forever: the composer burned its score. And Tchaikovsky later reworked the opera “Blacksmith “Vakula” (1885) (the second

the editorial office is called “Cherevichki”). All these are examples of the composer’s great demands on himself.

Of course, Tchaikovsky, the author of “The Voevoda” and “The Oprichnik,” is inferior in maturity of talent to Tchaikovsky, the creator of “Eugene Onegin” and “The Queen of Spades.” And yet, Tchaikovsky’s first operas, staged in the late 60s and early 70s of the last century, retain artistic interest for listeners of our days. They have the emotional richness and melodic richness that are typical of the mature operas of the great Russian composer.

In the press of that time, in newspapers and magazines, prominent music critics G. A. Laroche and N. D. Kashkin wrote a lot and in detail about Tchaikovsky’s successes. Tchaikovsky's music found a warm response among the widest circles of listeners. Among Tchaikovsky’s followers were the great writers L.N. Tolstoy and I.S. Turgenev.

Tchaikovsky's many-sided activities in the 60-70s were of great importance not only for the musical culture of Moscow, but also for the entire Russian musical culture.

Along with intense creative activity, Tchaikovsky also carried out teaching work; he continued to teach at the Moscow Conservatory (among Tchaikovsky’s students was the composer S.I. Taneyev), and laid the foundations for musical theoretical teaching. In the early 70s, Tchaikovsky’s harmony textbook was published, which has not lost its significance to this day.

Defending his own artistic beliefs, Tchaikovsky not only implemented new aesthetic principles in his works, not only introduced them in the process of pedagogical work, he fought for them and acted as music critic. Tchaikovsky was concerned about the fate of his native art, and he took upon himself the work of a musical reviewer in Moscow.

Tchaikovsky undoubtedly had literary abilities. If he needed to write a libretto for his own opera, this did not bother him; he is responsible for the translation of the literary text of Mozart’s opera “The Marriage of Figaro”; By translating the poems of the German poet Bodenstedt, Tchaikovsky inspired A. G. Rubinstein to create famous Persian songs. Tchaikovsky's gift as a writer is also evidenced by his magnificent legacy as a music critic.

Tchaikovsky's debut as a publicist was two articles - in defense of Rimsky-Korsakov and Balakirev. Tchaikovsky authoritatively refuted the negative judgment of the reactionary critic about Rimsky-Korsakov’s early work “Serbian Fantasy” and predicted a brilliant future for the twenty-four-year-old composer.

The second article (“Voice from the Moscow musical world”) was written in connection with the fact that the dignitary “patrons” of art, led by Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, expelled Balakirev from the Russian Musical Society. In response to this, Tchaikovsky angrily wrote: “Balakirev can now say what the father of Russian literature said when he received news of his expulsion from

Academy of Sciences: “The Academy can be separated from Lomonosov..., but Lomonosov cannot be separated from the Academy!”

Everything that was advanced and viable in art was found warm support Tchaikovsky. And not only in Russian: in his homeland, Tchaikovsky promoted the most valuable thing in French music of that time - the work of J. Bizet, C. Saint-Saens, L. Delibes, J. Massenet. Tchaikovsky treated both the Norwegian composer Grieg and the Czech composer A. Dvorak with equal love. These were artists whose work corresponded to Tchaikovsky’s aesthetic views. He wrote about Edvard Grieg: “My nature and his are in close inner kinship.”

Many talented Western European composers wholeheartedly embraced his affection, and now one cannot read Saint-Saëns’ letters to Tchaikovsky without emotion: “You will always have in me a devoted and faithful friend.”

It is also worth recalling the significance of Tchaikovsky’s critical activity in the history of the struggle for national opera.

The seventies for Russian opera were years of rapid prosperity, which took place in a bitter struggle with everything that hindered the development of national music. A long struggle unfolded over musical theater. And in this struggle Tchaikovsky played a big role. For Russian opera, he demanded space and freedom of creativity. In 1871, Tchaikovsky began writing about the “Italian Opera” (the so-called Italian

opera troupe, constantly touring in Russia).

Tchaikovsky was far from the idea of denying the operatic achievements of Italy, the cradle of operatic art. With what admiration Tchaikovsky wrote about the joint performances on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater by wonderful Italian, French and Russian singers: the gifted A. Patti, D. Artaud, E. Noden, E. A. Lavrovskaya, E. P. Kadmina, F. I. Stravinsky . But the rules established by the management of the imperial theaters prevented creative competition between representatives of the two national cultures- Italian and Russian. The position of Russian opera was negatively affected by the fact that the aristocratic public demanded, above all, entertainment and refused to recognize the successes of their national composers. Therefore, the management gave unheard of privileges to the entrepreneur of the Italian opera troupe. The repertoire was limited to works by foreign composers, and Russian operas and Russian artists were suppressed. The Italian troupe became a purely commercial enterprise. In pursuit of profit, the entrepreneur speculated on the tastes of the “most illustrious parterre” (Tchaikovsky).

With exceptional tenacity and consistency, Tchaikovsky exposed the cult of profit, incompatible with true art. He wrote: “Something ominous seized my soul when, amid the performance in one of the boxes of the benoir, the tall, skinny figure of the ruler of Moscow pockets, Signor Merelli, appeared. His face

breathed calm self-confidence and from time to time a smile of either contempt or cunning self-satisfaction played on the lips...”

Condemning the entrepreneurial approach to art, Tchaikovsky also denounced the conservatism of tastes, supported by certain sections of the public, dignitaries from the Ministry of the Court, and officials from the office of the imperial theaters.

If the seventies were the heyday of Russian opera, then Russian ballet at that time was experiencing acute crisis. G. A. Laroche, figuring out the causes of this crisis, wrote:

“With very few exceptions, serious, serious composers keep themselves away from ballet.”

Favorable conditions were created for artisan composers. The stage was literally filled with ballet performances in which the music served as a dance rhythm - nothing more. Ts. Puni, a staff composer of the Mariinsky Theatre, managed to compose more than three hundred ballets in this “style”.

Tchaikovsky was the first Russian classical composer to turn to ballet. He could not have achieved success without mastering the best achievements of Western European ballet; he also relied on the wonderful traditions created by M. I. Glinka in the dance scenes from “Ivan Susanin”, “Ruslan and Lyudmila”.

Did Tchaikovsky think when he created his ballets that he was carrying out a reform in Russian choreographic art?

No. He was overly modest and never considered himself an innovator. But from the day Tchaikovsky agreed to fulfill the order of the Bolshoi Theater management and began writing the music for Swan Lake in the summer of 1875, he began to reform the ballet.

The element of dance was no less close to him than the sphere of song and romance. It is not for nothing that the “Character Dances” were the first to become famous among his works, attracting the attention of I. Strauss.

Russian ballet, in the person of Tchaikovsky, has acquired a subtle lyricist-thinker, a true symphonist. And Tchaikovsky's ballet music is deeply meaningful; it expresses the characters of the characters, their spiritual essence. In the dance music of previous composers (Puni, Minkus, Gerber) there was neither great content, nor psychological depth, nor the ability to express the image of the hero in sounds.

Innovation in ballet art was not easy for Tchaikovsky. The premiere of Swan Lake at the Bolshoi Theater (1877) could not bode well for the composer. According to N.D. Kashkin, “almost a third of Tchaikovsky’s music was replaced by inserts from other ballets, and the most mediocre ones at that.” Only at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, through the efforts of choreographers M. Petipa, L. Ivanov, I. Gorsky, artistic productions of “Swan Lake” were carried out, and the ballet received worldwide recognition.

1877 was perhaps the most difficult year in the composer's life. All his biographers write about this. After an unsuccessful marriage, Tchaikovsky leaves Moscow and goes abroad. Tchaikovsky lives in Rome, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Geneva, Venice, Florence... And he doesn’t stay anywhere for long. Tchaikovsky calls his lifestyle abroad wandering. Creativity helps Tchaikovsky get out of his mental crisis.

For his homeland, 1877 was the year the Russian-Turkish War began. Tchaikovsky's sympathies were on the side Slavic peoples Balkan Peninsula.

In one of his letters to his homeland, Tchaikovsky wrote that in difficult moments for the people, when because of the war every day “many families are orphaned and turned into beggary, it is ashamed to plunge up to their necks in their private petty affairs.”

The year 1878 was marked by two greatest creations, which were created in parallel. Those were the fourth symphony and the opera “Eugene Onegin” - they were the highest expression of Tchaikovsky’s ideals and thoughts in that period.

There is no doubt that personal drama (Tchaikovsky even thought about suicide), as well as historical events, influenced the content of the fourth symphony. Having completed this work, Tchaikovsky dedicated it to N. F. von Meck. At a critical moment in Tchaikovsky's life

Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meck played a big role, providing moral support and material assistance, which promoted Tchaikovsky’s independence and was used by him to devote himself entirely to creativity.

In one of his letters to von Meck, Tchaikovsky outlined the contents of the fourth symphony.

The main idea of the symphony is the idea of conflict between man and forces hostile to him. As one of the main themes, Tchaikovsky uses the “rock” motif, which permeates the first and last parts of the symphony. The theme of rock has a broad collective meaning in the symphony - it is a generalized image of evil, with which man enters into an unequal struggle.

The fourth symphony summed up the results instrumental creativity young Tchaikovsky.

Almost at the same time, another composer, Borodin, created the “Heroic Symphony” (1876). The appearance of the epic “Heroic” and lyrical-dramatic fourth symphony was a real creative victory for Borodin and Tchaikovsky, the two founders of the classical Russian symphony.

Like the participants in Balakirev's circle, Tchaikovsky highly valued and loved opera as the most democratic genre of musical art. But unlike the Kuchkists, who turned to historical themes in their operatic works (“The Woman of Pskov” by Rimsky-Korsakov, “Boris Godunov” by Mussorgsky, “Prince Igor” by Borodin), where the main character is the people, Tchaikovsky is attracted

stories that help him reveal the inner world of a common man. But before finding these “his” subjects, Tchaikovsky went through a long journey of search.

Only in the thirty-eighth year of his life, after “Ondine”, “The Voevoda”, “The Blacksmith Vakula”, Tchaikovsky created his operatic masterpiece, writing the opera “Eugene Onegin”. Everything in this opera boldly violated the generally accepted traditions of opera productions; everything was simple, deeply truthful and, at the same time, everything was innovative.

In the fourth symphony, in Onegin, Tchaikovsky came to the full maturity of his mastery. IN further evolution Tchaikovsky's operatic work becomes more complex and the dramaturgy of the operas is enriched, but the deep lyricism and exciting drama inherent in it, the transmission of the most subtle shades of spiritual life, and a classically clear form remain everywhere.

In 1879, Tchaikovsky completed the opera “The Maid of Orleans” (the libretto was written by the composer based on Schiller’s drama). The new opera was associated with a heroic page in the history of France - an episode from the Hundred Years' War in Europe in the 14th-15th centuries, the feat of Joan of Arc, the heroine of the French people. Despite the diversity of external effects and theatrical techniques, which clearly contradict the aesthetic views of the composer himself, the opera “The Maid of Orleans” contains many pages filled with real drama and lyrically soulful. Some of them can be safely attributed to the best examples of Russian operatic art: for example, the wonderful

Joanna’s aria “Forgive me, dear fields, forests” and the entire third picture, saturated with powerful emotional power.

Tchaikovsky reached the heights of operatic art in his works on Pushkin's themes. In 1883, he wrote the opera “Mazepa” based on the plot of Pushkin’s “Poltava”. The harmony of the compositional plan of the opera, the brightness of the dramatic contrasts, the versatility of the images, the expressiveness of the folk scenes, the masterful orchestration - all this cannot but indicate that after the opera “The Maid of Orleans” Tchaikovsky stepped forward significantly and that “Mazeppa” is an outstanding work that has enriched the Russian art of the 80s.

In the field of symphonic creativity, during these years Tchaikovsky created three orchestral suites (1880, 1883, 1884): “Italian Capriccio” and “Serenade for String Orchestra” (1880), and the large program symphony “Manfred” (1884).

The ten-year period, from 1878 to 1888, which separates Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony from his fifth symphony, was marked by important historical events. Let us remember that first it was a time of a revolutionary situation (1879-81), and then a period of reaction. All this, albeit in an indirect form, was reflected in Tchaikovsky. From the composer's correspondence we learn that he, too, did not escape the oppression of the reaction. “At present, even the most peaceful citizen has a hard time living in Russia,” Tchaikovsky wrote in 1882.

Political reaction failed to undermine the creative powers of the best representatives of art and literature. It is enough to list the works of L. N. Tolstoy (“The Power of Darkness”), A. P. Chekhov (“Ivanov”), M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (“Judushka Golovlev”, “Poshekhon Antiquity”), the brilliant paintings of I. E. Repin (“They Didn’t Expect”, “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan”) and V.I. Surikov (“Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, “Boyarina Morozova”), point to Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina”, Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Snow Maiden” and "Mazepa" by Tchaikovsky to remember the great achievements of Russian art and literature of the 80s.

It was at this time that Tchaikovsky’s music conquered and brought world fame to its creator. The original concerts of Tchaikovsky, the conductor, are held with great success in Paris, Berlin, Prague, in cities that have been centers of European musical culture for a long time. Later, in the early 90s, Tchaikovsky's performances in America were triumphant - in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia, where the great composer was greeted with exceptional hospitality. In England, Tchaikovsky was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge. Tchaikovsky was elected to the largest musical societies in Europe.

In April 1888, Tchaikovsky settled near Moscow, not far from the city of Klin, in Frolovskoye. But here Tchaikovsky could not feel completely calm, so

how he found himself an unwitting witness to the predatory destruction of the surrounding forests, and moved to Maidanovo. In 1892, he moved to Klin, where he rented a two-story house, now known throughout the world as the Tchaikovsky House Museum.

In Tchaikovsky's life, this time was marked by the highest achievements of creativity. During these five years, Tchaikovsky created the fifth symphony, the ballet “The Sleeping Beauty”, the operas “The Queen of Spades”, “Iolanta”, the ballet “The Nutcracker” and, finally, the brilliant sixth symphony.

The main idea of the fifth symphony is the same as the fourth - the opposition of fate and the human desire for happiness. In the fifth symphony, the composer returns to the theme of rock in each of the four movements. Tchaikovsky introduces lyrical musical landscapes into the symphony (he composed in the most picturesque surroundings of Klin). The outcome of the struggle, the resolution of the conflict is given in the finale, where the theme of rock develops into a solemn march, personifying the victory of man over fate.

In the summer of 1889, Tchaikovsky completely completed the ballet “The Sleeping Beauty” (based on the fairy tale French writer C. Perrault). In the autumn of the same year, when the new ballet was being prepared for production on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, the director of the imperial theaters I. A. Vsevolozhsky ordered Tchaikovsky’s opera “The Queen of Spades”. Tchaikovsky agreed to write a new opera.

The opera was composed in Florence. Tchaikovsky arrived here on January 18, 1890, and settled in a hotel. After 44 days - March 3 - the opera “The Queen of Spades” was completed

in the clavier. The process of instrumentation proceeded very quickly, and soon after the completion of the score, “The Queen of Spades” was accepted for production Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, as well as at the Kyiv Opera and the Bolshoi Theater.

The premiere of The Queen of Spades took place at the Mariinsky Theater on December 19, 1890. The part of Herman was sung by the outstanding Russian singer N. N. Figner, and the inspired performer of the part of Lisa was his wife M. I. Figner. Prominent artistic forces of that time took part in the performance: I. A. Melnikov (Tomsky), L. G. Yakovlev (Eletsky), M. A. Slavina (Countess). Conducted by E. F. Napravnik. A few days later, on December 31 of the same year, the opera was staged in Kyiv with the participation of M. E. Medvedev (German), I. V. Tartakov (Eletsky) and others. A year later, on November 4, 1891, the first production of “The Queen of Spades” took place "in Moscow on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater. The main roles were entrusted to a remarkable galaxy of artists: M. E. Medvedev (German), M. A. Deisha-Sionitskaya (Liza), P. A. Khokhlov (Eletsky), B. B. Korsov (Tomsky), A. P. Krutikova (Countess), conducted by I.K. Altani.

The first productions of the opera were distinguished by great care and were a huge success with the public. How many stories similar to the “little” tragedy of Herman and Lisa were there during the reign of Alexandra III. And the opera made us think, sympathize with the downtrodden, and hate everything dark and ugly that interfered with people’s happy lives.

The opera “The Queen of Spades” was in tune with the sentiments of many people in Russian art in the 90s. The ideological similarities of Tchaikovsky's opera With works fine arts and literature of those years is found in the works of great Russian artists and writers.

In the story “The Queen of Spades” (1834), Pushkin created typical images. Having painted a picture of the ugly morals of secular society, the writer condemned the noble Petersburg of his time.

Long before Tchaikovsky, the plot conflict of “The Queen of Spades” was used in the opera of the French composer J. Halévy, in the operetta German composer F. Suppe and in the drama of the Russian writer D. Lobanov. None of the listed authors managed to create any original work. And only Tchaikovsky, turning to this plot, created a work of genius.

The libretto for the opera “The Queen of Spades” was written by the composer’s brother, playwright Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The original source was processed in accordance with the principles of creativity, desires and instructions of the composer; he took an active part in compiling the libretto: he wrote poetry, demanded the introduction of new scenes, and shortened the texts of opera parts.

The libretto clearly outlines the main dramatic stages in the development of the action: Tomsky’s ballad about three cards marks the beginning of the tragedy, which reaches its climax

in the fourth scene; then comes the denouement of the drama - first the death of Lisa, then Herman.

In Tchaikovsky's opera, Pushkin's plot is supplemented and developed, and the accusatory motives of Pushkin's story are strengthened.

From the story “The Queen of Spades,” Tchaikovsky and his librettist left the scenes in the countess’s bedroom and in the barracks untouched. At the request of Vsevolozhsky, the action of the opera was transferred from St. Petersburg during the time of Alexander I to St. Petersburg during the time of Catherine the Great. The same Vsevolozhsky advised Tchaikovsky to introduce the interlude “The Sincerity of the Shepherdess” (third scene). The music of the interlude is written in the style of Mozart, a composer dearly loved by Tchaikovsky, and the words are taken from the texts of Karabanov, a little-known and long-forgotten poet of the 18th century. To further emphasize the everyday flavor, the librettist turned to the heritage of more famous poets: Tomsky’s playful song “If only dear girls” was written to the text by G. R. Derzhavin, a poem by V. A. Zhukovsky was chosen for the duet of Lisa and Polina, words by another poet XIX century - K.N. Batyushkova were used for Polina's romance.

It should be noted that there is a difference between the image of Herman in Pushkin’s story and in Tchaikovsky’s opera. Pushkin's German does not evoke sympathy: he is an egoist who has some wealth and strives with all his might to increase it. Tchaikovsky's Herman is contradictory and complex. Two passions fight in him: love and the thirst for wealth. The contradiction of this image

his internal development - from love and the obsession of profit gradually darkening the mind to death and rebirth at the time of the death of the former Herman - provided the composer with exceptionally grateful material for embodying Tchaikovsky’s favorite theme in the operatic genre - the theme of contrasting man, his dream of happiness with a fate hostile to him.

The contrasting features of the image of Herman, who is the central figure of the entire opera, are revealed with enormous realistic power in the music of his two ariosos. In the poetically penetrating monologue “I don’t know her name,” Herman appears overwhelmed by ardent love. In the arioso “What is our life” (in a gambling house), the composer brilliantly conveyed the moral decline of his hero.

The librettist and composer also revised the image of Lisa, the heroine of the story “The Queen of Spades.” In Pushkin, Liza is presented as a poor pupil and a downtrodden hanger-on of the old countess. In the opera, Lisa (here she is the granddaughter of a wealthy countess) actively fights for her happiness. According to the original version, the performance ended with the reconciliation of Lisa and Yeletsky. The falsity of such a situation was obvious, and the composer created the famous scene at the Kanavka, where an artistically completed, truthful end to the tragedy of Lisa, who commits suicide, is given.

Lisa's musical image contains the features of warm lyricism and sincerity with the typical features of Tchaikovsky's tragic doom. At the same time, Tchaikovsky expresses the complex inner world of the heroine

without the slightest pretentiousness, maintaining complete natural vitality. Lisa’s arioso “Oh, I’m tired of grief” is widely known. The exceptional popularity of this dramatic episode is explained by the fact that the composer managed to put into it all his understanding of the great tragedy of a Russian woman, lonely mourning her fate.

Some characters absent from Pushkin's story are boldly introduced into Tchaikovsky's opera: these are Lisa's fiancé and Herman's rival, Prince Yeletsky. New character exacerbates the conflict; In the opera, two contrasting images appear, brilliantly captured in Tchaikovsky’s music. Let us remember Herman’s arioso “Forgive me, heavenly creature” and Yeletsky’s arioso “I love you.” Both heroes turn to Lisa, but how different their experiences are: Herman is enveloped in fiery passion; in the appearance of the prince, in his arioso music there is beauty, self-confidence, as if he is talking not about love, but about calm affection.

The opera's characterization of the old countess - the imaginary owner of the secret of three cards - is very close to Pushkin's original source. Tchaikovsky's music depicts this character as an image of death. Minor changes have been made to minor characters like Chekalinsky or Surin.

The dramaturgical concept determined the system of leitmotifs. The most widely developed in the opera are the leitmotif of Herman's fate (the theme of three cards) and the exciting, deeply emotional theme of the love of Lisa and Herman.

In the opera The Queen of Spades, Tchaikovsky brilliantly combined the melodic richness of the vocal parts with the development musical material. “The Queen of Spades” is the highest achievement of Tchaikovsky’s operatic creativity and one of the greatest peaks in the world opera classics.

Following the tragic opera “The Queen of Spades,” Tchaikovsky creates a work of optimistic content. It was "Iolanta" (1891) - the last opera Tchaikovsky. According to Tchaikovsky, the one-act opera “Iolanta” should be performed in one performance with the ballet “The Nutcracker”. With the creation of this ballet, the composer completes the reform of musical choreography.

Tchaikovsky's last work was his sixth symphony, performed on October 28, 1893, a few days before the composer's death. Tchaikovsky himself conducted. On November 3, Tchaikovsky fell seriously ill and died on November 6.

Russian musical classics of the second half of the 19th century gave the world many famous names, but brilliant music Tchaikovsky makes him stand out even among greatest artists this era.

Tchaikovsky's creative path runs through the complex historical period of the 60s-90s. Over a relatively short period of creativity (twenty-eight years), Tchaikovsky wrote ten operas, three ballets, seven symphonies and many works in other genres.

Tchaikovsky amazes with his versatile talents. It is not enough to say that he is an opera composer, creator of ballets, symphonies, and romances; He achieved recognition and fame in the field of program-instrumental music, created concerts, chamber ensembles, and piano works. And in any of these art forms he performed with equal force.

Tchaikovsky gained wide fame during his lifetime. He had an enviable fate: his works always found a response in the hearts of listeners. But really folk composer he has become in our time. Remarkable achievements of science and technology - sound recording, radio, cinema and television made his work accessible in the most remote corners of our country. The great Russian composer became the favorite composer of all the peoples of our country.

The musical culture of millions of people is brought up on the creative heritage of Tchaikovsky.

His music lives among the people, and this is immortality.

O. Melikyan

Queen of Spades

Opera in 3 acts

PLOT
BORROWED FROM THE STORY
A. S. PUSHKINA

Libretto
M. TCHAIKOVSKY

Music
P. I. TCHAIKOVSKY

CHARACTERS


Count Tomsky (Zlatogor)
Prince Yeletsky
Chekalinsky

Chaplitsky

Manager
	mezzo-soprano

Polina (Milovzor)	contralto
Governess	mezzo-soprano

Boy Commander	non-singing
Characters in the sideshow

Milovzor (Polina)	contralto
Zlatogor (city of Tomsk)

Nannies, governesses, nurses, walkers
guests, children, players, etc.

The action takes place in St. Petersburg
at the end of the 18th century.

INTRODUCTION.
ACT ONE

PICTURE ONE

Spring. Summer garden. Venue. Nannies, governesses and nurses sit on benches and walk around the garden. Children play with burners, others jump over ropes and throw balls.

Burn, burn clearly
So that it doesn't go out,
One, two, three!
(Laughter, exclamations, running around.)

Have fun, dear children!
Rarely is the sunshine for you, my dears,
Amuses me with joy!
If, dear ones, you are free
You start games and pranks,
That's a little bit for your nannies
Then you bring peace.
Warm up, run, dear children,
And have fun in the sun!

Nurses

Bye, bye bye!
Sleep, darling, rest!
Don't open your eyes!

(Drumming and children's trumpets are heard.)

Here are our soldiers coming - little soldiers.
How slim! Step aside! Places! One, two, one two...

(Boys wearing toy weapons enter; a boy commander is in front.)

Boys (marching)

One, two, one, two,
Left, right, left right!
Together, brothers!
Don't get lost!

Boy Commander

Right shoulder forward! One, two, stop!

(The boys stop)

Listen!
Musket in front of you! Take it by the gun! Musket to the leg!

(The boys follow the command.)

Boys

We're all gathered here
For fear of Russian enemies.
Evil enemy, beware!
And run away with villainous thoughts, or submit!
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!
Save the Fatherland
It was our fate.
We will fight
And enemies in captivity
Pick up without invoice!
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!
Long live the wife,
Wise Queen,
She is the mother of us all,
Empress of these countries
And pride and beauty!
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

Boy Commander

Well done, guys!

Boys

We are glad to try, your honor!

Boy Commander

Listen!
Musket in front of you! Right! On guard! March!

(The boys leave drumming and trumpeting.)

Nannies, nurses, governesses

Well, well done, our soldiers!
And indeed they will bring fear to the enemy.

(Other children follow the boys. The nannies and governesses disperse, giving way to other walkers. Chekalinsky and Surin enter.)

Chekalinsky

How did the game end yesterday?

Of course, I blew it terribly!
I'm unlucky...

Chekalinsky

Did you play again until the morning?

I'm terribly tired
Damn it, I wish I could win at least once!

Chekalinsky

Was Herman there?

Was. And, as always,
From eight to eight in the morning
Chained to the gambling table
sat,

And silently blew wine,

Chekalinsky

And that's all?

Yes, I watched others play.

Chekalinsky

What a strange man he is!

It's like it's in his heart
There are at least three villains.

Chekalinsky

I heard that he is very poor...

Yes, not rich. Here it is, look:
Like a demon of hell, gloomy... pale...

(Herman enters, thoughtful and gloomy; Count Tomsky is with him.)

Tell me, Herman, what's wrong with you?

With me? Nothing...

Are you sick?

No, I'm healthy!

You have become something different...
Dissatisfied with something...
Happened: reserved, thrifty,
At least you were cheerful;
Now you are gloomy, silent
And, - I don’t believe my ears:
You, burning with a new passion,
As they say, until the morning
Do you spend your nights gaming?

Yes! Steady foot towards the goal
I cannot walk as before.

I myself don’t know what’s wrong with me.
I'm lost, I'm indignant at weakness,
But I can't control myself anymore...
I love! I love!

How! Are you in love? To whom?

I don't know her name
And I can't find out
Without wanting an earthly name,
Call her...
Going through all the comparisons,
I don't know who to compare with...
My love, the bliss of paradise,
I would like to keep it forever!
But the thought is jealous that someone else should have it
When I don’t dare kiss her footprint,
Torments me; and earthly passion
In vain I want to calm down,
And then I want to hug everyone,
And I still want to hug my saint...
I don't know her name
And I don't want to find out...

And if so, get to work quickly!
Let's find out who she is, and then -
And make an offer boldly,
And - it's a deal!

Oh no! Alas, she is noble
And it cannot belong to me!
This is what bothers and gnaws at me!

Let's find another... Not the only one in the world...

You don't know me!
No, I can’t stop loving her!
Oh, Tomsky, you don’t understand!
I could only live in peace
While passions were dormant within me...
Then I could control myself.
Now that the soul is in the grip of one dream,
Goodbye peace! Poisoned, as if intoxicated,
I'm sick, sick... I'm in love.

Is it you, Herman?
I admit, I wouldn't trust anyone
That you are capable of loving so much!

(Herman and Tomsky pass. People walking fill the stage.)

Walking Choir

Finally, God sent a sunny day!

We won't be able to wait long for a day like this again.

We haven't seen days like this for many years,
And it happened that we often saw them.
In the days of Elizabeth - a wonderful time -
Summer, autumn and spring were better.
Oh, many years have passed since there were such days,
And it used to be that we saw them often before.
The days of Elizabeth, what a wonderful time!
Oh, in the old days life was better, more fun,
Such spring, clear days have not happened for a long time!

Simultaneously

What a joy! What happiness!
How joyful, how joyful it is to live!
How nice it is to go to the Summer Garden!
Lovely, how nice it is to walk into the Summer Garden!
Look, look how many young people
There are a lot of both military and civilians wandering along the alleys
Look, look how many people are wandering around here:
Both military and civilian, how graceful, how beautiful.
How beautiful, look, look!
Finally, God sent us a sunny day!
What kind of air! What a sky! It's definitely May here!
Oh, how lovely! Really, I wish I could walk all day!
Can't wait for a day like this
Can't wait for a day like this
Long time for us again.
Can't wait for a day like this
Long time for us, long time for us again!

Young people

Sun, sky, air, nightingale song
And a bright blush on the girls’ cheeks.
Then spring gives, and with it love
Sweetly excites young blood!

Are you sure she doesn't notice you?
I bet she's in love and misses you...

If only I were deprived of gratifying doubt,
Would my soul have endured the torment?
You see: I live, I suffer, but in a terrible moment,
When I find out that I am not destined to possess her,
Then there will be only one thing left...

Die! (Prince Yeletsky enters. Chekalinsky and Surin go to him.)

Chekalinsky (to the prince)

We can congratulate you.

They say you are a groom?

Yes, gentlemen, I am getting married; the bright angel gave consent
Combine your destiny with mine forever!..

Chekalinsky

Well, good morning!

I'm glad with all my heart. Be happy, prince!

Yeletsky, congratulations!

Thank you, friends!

Prince(with feeling)

Happy day I bless you! How everything came together To rejoice with me, It was reflected everywhere The bliss of unearthly life... Everything smiles, everything shines, Just like in my heart, Everything is trembling cheerfully, To the bliss of heaven beckoning!		Simultaneously
Unlucky day I curse you! It's like everything came together To join the fight with me. Joy was reflected everywhere, But not in my sick soul... Everything smiles, everything shines, When on my heart The annoyance of hell trembles, It promises only torment...		Simultaneously

Tomsk(to the prince)

Tell me, who will you marry?

Prince, who is your bride?

(The Countess enters with Lisa.)

Prince(pointing to Lisa)

She? She is his bride! Oh God!...

Lisa and Countess

He's here again!

So that’s who your nameless beauty is!

I'm scared! He's in front of me again Mysterious and dark stranger! In his eyes there is a silent reproach Replaced by the fire of crazy, burning passion... Who is he? Why is he following me? His eyes of ominous fire! I'm scared!.		Simultaneously
I'm scared! He's in front of me again Mysterious and scary stranger! He is the ghost of the fatal Full of some kind of wild passion,		Simultaneously

What does he want by pursuing me? Why is he in front of me again? I'm scared, like I'm in power His eyes of ominous fire! I'm scared...		Simultaneously
I'm scared! Here again before me, like the ghost of a fatal A gloomy old woman appeared... Terrible in her eyes I read my sentence silently! What does she need, what does she want from me? It's like I'm in control Her eyes of ominous fire! Who, who is she? I'm scared!
I'm scared! My God, how embarrassed she is! Where does this strange excitement come from? There is languor in her soul, There is some kind of silent fear in her eyes! It’s a clear day in them for some reason The bad weather has come to change. What's wrong with her? Doesn't look at me! Oh, I'm scared, like I'm close Some unexpected misfortune threatens. I'm scared!
So who was he talking about? How embarrassed he is by the unexpected news! I see fear in his eyes... Silent fear was replaced by the fire of insane passion!

I'm scared.

(Count Tomsky approaches the Countess. The Prince approaches Lisa. The Countess looks intently at Herman)

Countess,
Let me congratulate you...

Tell me who is this officer?

Which? This? Herman, my friend.

Where did he come from? How scary he is!

(Tomsky accompanies her to the depths of the stage.)

Prince (giving hand to Lisa)

Heaven's enchanting beauty,
Spring, zephyrs light rustle,
The joy of the crowd, hello friends, -
They promise many years in the future
We are happy!

Rejoice, buddy!
Have you forgotten that behind a quiet day
There is a thunderstorm. What is the creator
Gave happiness tears, a bucket - thunder!

(Distant thunder. Herman sits down on the bench in gloomy thoughtfulness.)

What a witch this Countess is!

Chekalinsky

Scarecrow!

No wonder she was nicknamed “The Queen of Spades.”
I can’t understand why she doesn’t show off?

How? An old woman?

Chekalinsky

An eighty-year-old hag!

So you don't know anything about her?

No, really, nothing.

Chekalinsky

Oh, listen!
Many years ago the Countess was known in Paris as a beauty.
All the youth were crazy about her,
Calling it “Venus of Moscow”.
Count Saint-Germain - among others then still handsome,
I was captivated by her. But to no avail he sighed for the countess:
All night long the beauty played and, alas,
Pharaoh preferred love.

Once at Versailles, “au jeu de la Reine” Venus moscovite was lost to the ground.

Among the guests was the Count of Saint-Germain;
While watching the game, he heard her
She whispered in the midst of excitement: “Oh, God! Oh my!
Oh God, I could play it all back
When would it be enough to put it again

The graph, having chosen the right moment when
Stealthily leaving the full hall of guests,
The beauty sat silently alone,
In love, he whispered words sweeter than the sounds of Mozart in her ear:

“Countess, Countess, Countess, at the price of one, “rendezvous” you want,
Perhaps I'll tell you three cards, three cards, three cards?
The Countess flared up: “How dare you!”
But the count was not a coward... And when a day later
The beauty appeared again, alas,
Penniless "au jeu de la Reine"
She already knew three cards.
Boldly placing them one after another,
She got hers back... but at what cost!
Oh cards, oh cards, oh cards!

Since she told her husband those cards,
Another time, the handsome young man recognized them.
But that same night, only one remained,
The ghost appeared to her and said menacingly:
"You will receive a fatal blow

Three cards, three cards, three cards!”

Chekalinsky

Se nonè vero, è ben trovato.

(Thunder is heard, a thunderstorm is coming.)

Funny! But the Countess can sleep peacefully:
It is difficult for her to find an ardent lover.

Chekalinsky

Listen, Herman, here's a great opportunity for you,
To play without money. Think about it!

(Everyone laughs.)

Chekalinsky, Surin

“From the third, who ardently, passionately loving,
He will come to find out from you by force
Three cards, three cards, three cards!”

(They leave. There is a strong clap of thunder. The thunderstorm is breaking out. The walkers are hurrying towards equal sides. Exclamations, screams.)

Walking Choir

How quickly the storm came... Who would have expected?..
What passions... Blow after blow, louder, more terrible!
Run quickly! Hurry up to the gate!

(Everyone runs away. The thunderstorm intensifies.)
(From a distance.)

Ah, hurry home!
Run here quickly!

(Strong clap of thunder.)

Hermann (thoughtfully)

"You will receive a fatal blow
From the third, who ardently, passionately loving,

He will come to find out from you by force
Three cards, three cards, three cards!”
Oh, what do I care about them, even if I possessed them!
Everything is lost now... I am the only one left. I'm not afraid of the storm!
In myself all the passions awoke with such murderous force,
That thunder is nothing in comparison! No, prince!
As long as I'm alive, I won't give it to you.
I don’t know how, but I’ll take it!
Thunder, lightning, wind, in your presence I solemnly grant
I take an oath: she will be mine, or I will die!

(Runs away.)

PICTURE TWO

Lisa's room. Door to balcony overlooking the garden. Lisa at the harpsichord. Polina is near her. Girlfriends.

Lisa and Polina

It’s already evening... the edges of the clouds have darkened,
The last ray of dawn on the towers dies;
The last shining stream in the river
With the extinct sky it fades away.
Everything is quiet: the groves are sleeping; there is peace all around;
Prostrate on the grass under a bent willow,
I listen to how it murmurs, merging with the river,
A stream overshadowed by bushes.
How the aroma is fused with the coolness of the plants!
How sweet is the splashing of the jets in the silence by the shore!
How softly the zephyr blows across the waters,
And the fluttering of the flexible willow!

Chorus of girlfriends

Charming! Charming!
Wonderful! Lovely! Oh, wonderful, good!
More, mesdames, more, more.

Sing, Polya, for us alone.

One?
But what to sing?

Chorus of girlfriends

Please, what do you know?
Ma chère, little dove, sing us something.

I'll sing my favorite romance...

(Sits down at the harpsichord, plays and sings with deep feeling.)

Wait... How is this? Yes, I remembered!
Dear friends, in playful carelessness,
To the tune of a dance you frolic in the meadows!
And I, like you, lived happy in Arcadia,
And I, in the morning of days, in these groves and fields
I tasted moments of joy:
Love promised me happiness in golden dreams,
But what did I get in these joyful places?
Grave!

(Everyone is touched and excited.)

So I decided to sing a tearful song like this?
Well, why? You’re already sad enough, Lisa,
On such and such a day! Think about it, you're engaged, ah, ah, ah!

(To girlfriends.)

Well, why are you all hanging your noses? Let's have fun,

Yes, Russian in honor of the bride and groom!
Well, I'll start, and you sing along with me!

Chorus of girlfriends

Indeed, let's have a fun, Russian one!

(The friends clap their hands. Lisa, not taking part in the fun, stands thoughtfully by the balcony.)

Pauline (friends sing along with her)

Come on, little Mashenka,
You sweat, dance,
Ay, lyuli, lyuli,
You sweat, dance.
Your white hands
Pick it up at the sides.
Ay, lyu-li, lyu-li,
Pick it up at the sides.
Your quick little legs
Don't be sorry, please.
Ay, lyuli, lyuli,
Don't be sorry, please.

(Polina and some friends start dancing.)

When mommy asks: “Have fun!”
Ay, lyu-li, lu-li, “fun!” speak.
And to the answer auntie:
Like, “I drank until dawn!”
Ay, lyu-li, lu-li, lu-li,
Like, “I drank until dawn!”
The fellow will reproach:
“Go away, go away!”
Ay, lyu-li, lyu-li,
“Go away, go away!”

(The Countess's governess enters.)

Governess

Mesdemoiselles, what's all the noise you're making here? The Countess is angry...
Ay, ay, ay! Aren't you ashamed to dance in Russian!
Fi, quel genre, mesdames!
The young ladies of your circle need to know some decency!
You should have taught each other the rules of the world.
In girls' rooms you can only rage, not here, mes mignonnes.
Isn't it possible to have fun without forgetting the bon ton?...
It's time to leave...
I was sent to call you to say goodbye...

(The young ladies disperse.)

Pauline (approaching Lisa)

Lise, why are you so boring?

Am I boring? Not at all! Look what a night!
As if after a terrible storm, everything was suddenly renewed.

Look, I'll complain to the prince about you.
I'll tell him that on the day of the engagement you were sad...

No, for God's sake, don't talk!

Then please smile now...
Like this! Now goodbye. (They kiss.)

I'll take you...

(They leave. The maid comes and puts out the fire, leaving one candle. As she approaches the balcony to close it, Lisa returns.)

No need to close. Leave it.

Don't catch a cold, young lady.

No, Masha, the night is so warm, so good!

Would you like me to help you undress?

No, I'm on my own. Go to bed.

It's too late, young lady...

Leave me, go...

(Masha leaves. Lisa stands in deep thought, then quietly cries.)

Where do these tears come from, what are they for?
My girlish dreams, you cheated on me!
This is how you justified yourself in reality!..
I have now entrusted my life to the prince - the chosen one after my heart,
Being, intelligence, beauty, nobility, wealth,
A worthy friend not like me.
Who is noble, who is handsome, who is stately like him?
Nobody! So what?...
I’m full of melancholy and fear, I’m trembling and crying.
Why are these tears, why are they?
My girlish dreams, you cheated on me...
It’s both hard and scary! But why deceive yourself?
I'm alone here, everything around me is sleeping quietly...

Oh, listen, night!

You alone can trust the secret of my soul.
She is gloomy, like you, she is like the sad gaze of eyes,
Those who took away my peace and happiness...

Queen of the night!

Like you, beauty, like a fallen angel, he is beautiful.
There is a fire of burning passion in his eyes,
How wonderful dream, beckons me.
And my whole soul is in his power.
Oh night!

(Herman appears at the door of the balcony. Lisa retreats in horror. They silently look at each other. Lisa makes a move to leave.)

Stop, I beg you!

Why are you here, crazy man?
What do you need?

Say goodbye!

(Lisa wants to leave.)

Don't leave! Stay! I'll leave now
And I won’t come back here again... Just a minute!
What's it worth to you? The dying man is calling to you.

Why, why are you here? Go away!

I'll scream.

Shout! (Taking out a gun) Call everyone!
I will die anyway, alone or with others.

(Lisa lowers her head.)

But if there is, beauty, there is even a spark of compassion in you,
Then wait, don’t go!..

After all, this is my last hour of death!
I found out my verdict today.
You, cruel one, entrust your heart to another!

(Passionately and expressively.)

Let me die, blessing you, not cursing you,
Can I live a day when you are a stranger to me!

I lived for you;

Only one feeling and one persistent thought possessed me.
I will die, but before I say goodbye to life,
Give me at least one moment to be alone with you,
In the midst of the wonderful silence of the night, let me revel in your beauty.
Then let death and peace come with it!

(Lisa stands, looking sadly at German.)

Stay like that! Oh, how beautiful you are!

Go away! Go away!

Gorgeous! Goddess! Angel!

(Herman kneels down.)

I'm sorry, heavenly creature, that I disturbed your peace.
Sorry! but do not reject a passionate confession,
Don't reject with sadness.
Oh, have pity, I, dying,
I bring you my prayer:
Look from the heights of heavenly paradise
To the death struggle
A soul tormented by the torment of love for you,
Oh, have pity and my spirit with affection, regret,
Warm me with your tears!

(Lisa is crying.)

You're crying! What do these tears mean?
Don't you drive and regret?

(Takes her hand, which she does not take away)

Thank you! Gorgeous! Goddess! Angel!

(He falls to Lisa’s hand and kisses it. There is the sound of footsteps and a knock on the door.)

Countess (behind the door)

Lisa, open the door!

Lisa (confused)

Countess! Good God! I'm dead!
Run!.. It's too late!.. Here!..

(The knocking intensifies. Lisa points German to the curtain. Then she goes to the door and opens it. A countess enters in a dressing gown, surrounded by maids with candles.)

Why aren't you sleeping? Why are you dressed? What's all this noise?..

Lisa (confused)

I, grandma, walked around the room... I can’t sleep...

Countess (gestures to close the balcony)

Why is the balcony open? What kind of fantasies are these?..
Look! Don't be stupid! Now go to bed (knocks with a stick)
Do you hear?...

Me, grandma, now!

I can’t sleep!..Have you heard of this! Well, times!
I can't sleep!... Now go to bed!

I obey. Sorry.

Countess (leaving)

And then I hear a noise; you're disturbing grandma! Let's go...
And don’t you dare try anything stupid here!

"Who, loving passionately,
He'll probably come to find out from you
Three cards, three cards, three cards!”
The cold of the grave blew all around!
ABOUT, scary ghost! Death, I don't want you!..

(Lisa, having closed the door behind the Countess, approaches the balcony, opens it and motions for Herman to leave.)

Oh, have mercy on me!

Death a few minutes ago
It seemed like salvation to me, almost happiness!
Not so now! She's scary to me!
You revealed the dawn of happiness to me,
I want to live and die with you.

Mad man, what do you want from me,
What can I do?

Decide my fate.

Have mercy! You are ruining me!
Go away! I ask you, I command you!

So, that means you pronounce the sentence of death!

Oh, God... I'm getting weaker... Go away, please!

Say then: die!

Good God!

(Herman wants to leave.)

No! Live!

(Impulsively hugs Lisa; she lowers her head onto his shoulder.)

Gorgeous! Goddess! Angel!
I love you!

ACT TWO

PICTURE THREE

A masquerade ball in the house of a wealthy nobleman in the capital. Large hall. On the sides, between the columns, there are boxes. Guests dance contradance. The singers sing in the choirs.

Choir of singers

Joyful! funny!
On this day, gather together, friends!
Give up your idle time
Jump and dance boldly!
Clap your hands with your hands
Click your fingers loudly!
Turn your black eyes,
You say everything with stature!
Fertik hands on your sides,
Take easy leaps
Knock on chobot,
Whistle with courage!
The owner and his wife
Welcomes good guests!

(The manager enters.)

Manager

The owner asks dear guests
Welcome to look at the sparkle of entertainment lights.

(All guests go to the garden terrace.)

Chekalinsky

Our Herman hung his nose again.
I guarantee you that he is in love;
He was gloomy, then he became cheerful.

No, gentlemen, he is carried away,
What do you think?
Hope to learn three cards.

Chekalinsky

What a weirdo!

I don’t believe it, you have to be ignorant to do this!
He's not a fool!

He told me himself.

Chekalinsky (to Surin)

Come on, let's go tease him!

(They pass.)

However, he is one of those
Who, once thinking,
Must accomplish everything!
Poor fellow!

(The hall empties. Servants enter to prepare the middle of the stage for the interlude. The Prince and Lisa pass.)

You're so sad, darling
As if you have grief...
Trust me.

No, later, prince.
Another time... I beg you!

(Wants to leave.)

Wait... just a moment!
I must, I must tell you!
I love you, I love you immensely,
I can’t imagine living a day without you,
I am a feat of unparalleled strength,
I'm ready to do it for you now,
But know: your hearts are free
I don't want to bother you with anything,
I'm ready to hide to please you
And calm down the heat of jealous feelings.
I am ready for anything, for you!
Not only a loving spouse -
Sometimes a useful servant
I wish I could be your friend
And always a comforter.
But I see clearly, I feel now,
Where did you take yourself in your dreams?
How little trust you have in me,
How alien and how distant I am to you!
Ah, I am tormented by this distance.
I sympathize with you with all my heart,
I'm saddened by your sadness
And I cry with your tears,
Oh, I'm tormented by this distance,
I sympathize with you with all my heart!

I love you, I love you immensely...
Oh honey, trust me!

(They leave.)
(Herman enters without a mask, holding a note in his hands.)

Hermann (reads)

After the performance, wait for me in the hall. I need to see you...
I would rather see her and give up this thought (sits down).
Three cards to know - and I'm rich!
And I can run with her
Away from people.
Damn it! This thought will drive me crazy!

(Several guests return to the hall; among them Chekalinsky and Surin. They point to Herman, creep up and, leaning over him, whisper.)

Chekalinsky, Surin

Aren't you the third one?
Who passionately loves
Will come to find out from her
Three cards, three cards, three cards...

(They are hiding. Herman stands up in fear, as if not realizing what is happening. When he looks around, Chekalinsky and Surin have already disappeared into the crowd of young people.)

Chekalinsky, Surin, several people from the choir

Three cards, three cards, three cards!

(They laugh. They mingle with the crowd of guests).

What is this? Nonsense or mockery?
No! What if...

(Covers his face with his hands.)

Madman, madman I am!

(Thinks.)

Manager

The owner asks his dear guests to listen to the pastoral
Under the title: “The Sincerity of a Shepherdess!”

(Guests are seated in the prepared places.)

Choir of Shepherds and Shepherdesses

(During the chorus, Prilepa alone does not take part in the dancing and weaves a wreath in sad thoughtfulness.)

Under the thick shade,
Near a quiet stream,
We came today in a crowd
Please yourself, sing, have fun
And the news is round dances,
Enjoy nature
Weave flower wreaths...

(The shepherds and shepherdesses dance, then retreat to the back of the stage.)

My dear little friend,
Dear shepherd,
For whom I sigh
And I wish to open passion,
Oh, I didn’t come to dance,
Oh, I didn’t come to dance!

(Milovzor enters.)

Milovzor

I'm here, but I'm boring, languid,
Look how much weight you've lost!
I won't be modest anymore
I hid my passion for a long time...

Zlatogor

How sweet and beautiful you are!
Tell me: which of us -
Me or him -
Do you agree to love forever?

Milovzor

I agreed with my heart
I was inclined to love her,
Whom does it command?
To whom does it burn?

I don’t need any estates
No rare stones
I'm with my sweetheart in the middle of the fields
And I’m glad to live in the hut! (To Milovzor.)
Well, master, good luck,
And you be calm!
Here, in solitude
Hurry to your reward
Such beautiful words
Bring me a bunch of flowers!

Prilepa and Milovzor

The end of the torment has come,

Love's admiration
The hour will soon come,
Love! Hide us.

Choir of Shepherds and Shepherdesses

The end of the torment has come -
The bride and groom are worthy of admiration,
Love! Conjugate them!

(Cupid and Hymen with their retinue enter to marry the young lovers. Prilepa and Milovzor, holding hands, dance. Shepherds and shepherdesses imitate them, form round dances, and then all leave in pairs. At the end of the interlude, some of the guests stand up, others talk animatedly, remaining in place. Herman approaches the front of the stage.)

Hermann (thoughtfully)

“Who ardently and passionately loves”... -
Well, don't I love you?
Of course - yes!

(He turns around and sees the countess in front of him. Both shudder and look intently at each other.)

Surin (wearing a mask)

Look, your lover!

(He laughs and hides.)

(Lisa enters wearing a mask.)

Listen, Herman!

You! Finally!
How happy I am that you came!
Love you!

This is not the place...
That's not why I called you.
Listen: - here is the key to the secret door in the garden:
There's a staircase. You will go up it to your grandmother's bedroom...

How? To her bedroom?...

She won't be there...
In the bedroom near the portrait
There is a door to me. I'll be waiting.
You, you alone, I want to belong to.
We need to solve everything!
See you tomorrow, my dear, beloved!

No, not tomorrow, I'll be there today!

Lisa (scared)

But, honey...

Let it be so!
After all, I am your slave!
Sorry...

(Hides.)

Now it's not me
Fate itself wants it this way
And I will know three cards!

(Runs away.)

Manager (excitedly)

Her Majesty would like to welcome you now...

Guest Choir

(There is great excitement in the choir. The director divides the crowd so that a passage is formed in the middle for the queen. Among the guests, those who made up the choir in the interlude also participate in the choir.)

(Everyone turns towards the middle doors. The manager signals to the singers to begin.)

Choir of guests and singers

Glory to this, Catherine,
Hail, mother tender to us!

(The men take a low court bow. The ladies crouch deeply. Pages appear.)

Vivat! Viva!

PICTURE FOUR

The countess's bedroom, illuminated by lamps. Herman enters through the secret door. He looks around the room.

Everything is as she told me...
So what? Am I afraid?
No! So it is decided:
I will find out the secret from the old woman!

(Thinks.)

And if there is no secret,
And this is all just empty nonsense
My sick soul?

(He goes to Lisa’s door. Stops at the portrait of the Countess. Midnight strikes.)

And, here it is, “Venus of Moscow”!
By some secret force
I am connected with her, by fate.
Do I need it from you?
Do you want it from me?
But I feel that one of us
Die from someone else.
I look at you and hate you
And I can’t get enough of it!
I would like to run away
But there is no power...
The inquisitive gaze cannot look away
From a terrible and wonderful face!
No, we can't separate
Without a fatal meeting.
Steps! Here they come! Yes!
Ah, come what may!

(Hides behind the boudoir curtain. The maid runs in and hastily lights the candles. Other maids and hangers-on come running after her. The Countess enters, surrounded by bustling maids and hangers-on.)

Choir of hangers-on and maids

Our benefactor,
How did you go for a walk?
Our light, little lady
He really wants to rest, right?
Tired, tea? So what:
Who was better looking there?
Were, perhaps, younger
But there is none more beautiful!

(They escort the Countess to the boudoir. Lisa enters, followed by Masha.)

No, Masha, come with me!

What's wrong with you, young lady, you're pale!

No, nothing...

Masha (guessing)

Oh my God! Really?...

Yes, he will come...
Shut up! He may be
It's waiting there...
Watch over us, Masha, be my friend.

Oh, I wish we didn’t get it!

That's what he ordered. My husband
I chose him. And an obedient, faithful slave
Became the one sent to me by fate.

(They leave. The campers and maids bring in the Countess. She is in a dressing gown and nightcap. They put her to bed.)

Maids and hangers-on

Benefactor, our light lady,
Tired, tea. He probably wants to rest!
Benefactor, beauty! Go to bed.
Tomorrow you will be more beautiful than the morning dawn again!
Benefactor, go to bed and rest!

Totally lie to you! Tired of it!..
I'm tired... I have no urine...
I don't want to sleep in bed!

(She is seated in a chair and covered with pillows.)

Oh, I hate this light.
Well, times! They don't really know how to have fun.
What manners! What a tone!
And I wouldn't look...
They don't know how to dance or sing!
Who are the dancers? Who's singing? girls!
And it happened: who was dancing? Who sang?
Le duc d'Orléans, le duc d'Ayen, duc de Coigny..
La comtesse d'Estrades, la duchesse de Brancas...
What names! and even, sometimes, the Marquise of Pampadour herself!
I sang in front of them... Le duc de la Vallière
He praised me. Once, I remember, in Chantylly, y Prince de Condé
The king heard me! I can see everything now...

Je cranes de lui parler la nuit,
J'ecoute trop tout ce qu'il dit;
Il me dit: je vous aime, et je sens malgré moi,
Je sens mon coeur qui bat, qui bat...
Ja ne sais pas pourquoi...

(As if waking up, he looks around)

Why are you standing here? Get out there!

(The maids and hangers-on disperse. The Countess falls asleep, humming the same song. Herman comes out from behind the shelter and stands opposite the Countess. She wakes up and silently moves her lips in horror.)

Don't be scared! For God's sake, don't be scared!
For God's sake, don't be scared!
I won't harm you!
I came to beg you for one mercy!

(The Countess silently looks at him as before.)

You can create the happiness of a lifetime!
And it won't cost you anything!
You know three cards.

(The Countess gets up.)

For whom should you keep your secret?

(Herman kneels down.)

If you have ever known the feeling of love,
If you remember the ardor and delight of young blood,
If you ever smiled at the affection of a child,
If your heart has ever beat in your chest,
Then I beg you, with the feeling of a wife, lover, mother, -
To everything that is sacred to you in life. Tell me, tell me
Tell me your secret! What do you need it for?
Perhaps it is associated with terrible sin,
With the destruction of bliss, with a devilish condition?

Think about it, you are old, you won’t live long,
And I am ready to take on your sin!
Open up to me! Tell!

(The Countess, straightening up, looks menacingly at Herman.)

Old witch! So I'll make you answer!

(Takes out a pistol. The Countess nods her head, raises her hands to shield herself from the shot and falls dead. Herman approaches the corpse and takes his hand.)

Stop being childish! Would you like to assign me three cards?
Yes or no?...
She's dead! It came true! But I didn’t find out the secret!
Dead! But I didn’t find out the secret... She’s dead! Dead!

(Lisa enters.)

What's all the noise here?

(Seeing Herman.)

Are you, are you here?

Be silent!.. Be silent!.. She is dead,
But I didn’t find out the secret!..

How dead? What are you talking about?

Hermann (pointing to the corpse)

It came true! She's dead, but I didn't find out the secret!

(Lisa rushes to the countess’s corpse.)

Yes! She died! Oh my God! And you did this?

I didn't want her to die...
I just wanted to know three cards!

So that's why you're here! Not for me!
You wanted to know three cards!
It wasn't me you needed, it was the cards!
Oh my God, my God!
And I loved him, because of him I died!
Monster! Murderer! Monster.

(Herman wants to speak, but she points with an imperious gesture to the secret door.)

Killer, Fiend! Away! Away! Villain! Away! Away!

She's dead!

(Herman runs away. Lisa, sobbing, falls on the countess’s corpse.)

ACT THREE

PICTURE FIFTH

Barracks. Herman's room. Late evening. The moonlight alternately illuminates the room through the window and then disappears. Howl of the wind. Herman is sitting at the table near a candle. He reads the letter.

Hermann (reads)

I don’t believe that you wanted the countess dead... I was tormented by the consciousness of my guilt before you. Calm me down. Today I’m waiting for you on the embankment, when no one can see us there. If you don’t come before midnight, I’ll have to admit a terrible thought that I’m driving away from myself. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I'm suffering so much!..

Poor thing! What an abyss I dragged her into with me!

Oh, if only I could forget myself and fall asleep.

(Sinks into a chair in deep thought and seems to be dozing. Then he gets up in fear.)

What is this? singing or wind howling? I can't figure it out...
Just like there... Yes, yes, they sing!
And here is the church, and the crowd, and candles, and incense, and sobs...
Here is the hearse, here is the coffin...
And in that coffin there is an old woman without movement, without breathing...
By some force I am drawn up the black steps!
It's scary, but there's no strength to go back,
I look at a dead face... And suddenly
Squinting mockingly, it blinked at me!
Away, terrible vision! Away!

(Sits down on a chair, covering his face with his hands.)

Simultaneously

Choir of singers behind the stage

I pray to the Lord that he will heed my sorrow,
For my soul is filled with evil and I fear the captivity of hell.
Oh, look, O God, at the suffering of your servant.
Give her endless life.

(There is a knock on the window. Herman raises his head and listens. The howl of the wind. Someone looks out of the window and disappears. Again there is a knock on the window. A gust of wind opens it and a shadow appears from there again. The candle goes out.)

Hermann (horrified)

I'm scared! Scary! There... there are steps...
They open the door... No, no, I can’t stand it!

(Runs to the door, but is stopped there by the ghost of the Countess. Herman retreats. The ghost approaches.)

Ghost of the Countess

I came to you against your will, but I was ordered to fulfill your request. Save Lisa, marry her, and three cards, three cards, three cards will win in a row. Remember: three, seven, ace!

(Disappears.)

Hermann (repeats with an air of madness)

Three, seven, ace!

PICTURE SIX

Night. Winter Canal. In the back of the scene are the embankment and the Peter and Paul Fortress, illuminated by the moon. Under the arch, in a dark corner, all in black, stands Lisa.

Midnight is approaching, and Herman is still not there, still not there...
I know he will come and dispel suspicion.
He is a victim of chance and crime
Can't, can't do it!
Oh, I’m tired, I’m exhausted!..
Oh, I'm exhausted with grief...
Night or day - only about him
I tormented myself with thoughts,
Where have you been?
Oh, I'm tired, I'm tired!
Life only promised me joy,
The cloud found, the thunder brought,
Everything I loved in the world
Happiness, my hopes were dashed!
Oh, I’m tired, I’m tired!..
Whether at night or during the day - only about him.
Oh, I tormented myself with thoughts,
Where are you, experienced joy?
The cloud came and brought a thunderstorm,
Happiness, my hopes were dashed!
I'm tired! I'm exhausted!
Melancholy gnaws and gnaws at me.

And if the clock strikes in response,
That he is a murderer, a seducer?
Oh, I'm scared, I'm scared!

(The clock strikes on the fortress tower.)

Oh, time! wait, he'll be here now... (with despair)
Oh, darling, come, have pity, have pity on me,
My husband, my lord!

So it's true! With a villain
I have tied my fate!
Murderer, monster forever
My soul belongs!..
by his criminal hand
And my life and honor were taken,
I am the fateful will of heaven
Cursed together with the murderer. (He wants to run, but Herman enters.)
You are here, you are here!
You are not a villain! Are you here.
The end of the torment has come
And I became yours again!
Away with tears, torment and doubts!
You are mine again and I am yours! (Falls into his arms.)

Hermann (kisses her)

Yes, here I am, my dear!

Oh yes, the suffering is over,
I'm with you again, my friend!

I'm with you again, my friend!

The bliss of the date has arrived.

The end of our painful torment.

Oh yes, the suffering is over, I’m with you again!..

Those were heavy dreams,
The dream deception is empty!

The dream deception is empty!

The lamentations and tears are forgotten!

But, honey, we can't hesitate,
The hours are running...Are you ready? Let's run!

Where to run? With you even to the ends of the world!

Where to run? Where? To the gambling house!

Oh God, what's wrong with you, Herman?

There are piles of gold for me too,
They belong to me alone!

Oh woe! Herman, what are you saying? Come to your senses!

Oh, I forgot, you don’t know yet!
Three cards, remember what else I wanted to find out then?
From the old witch!

Oh my God, he's crazy!

Stubborn, she didn’t want to tell me.
After all, today I had it -
And she named me three cards.

So, does that mean you killed her?

Oh no, why? I just raised the gun
And the old witch suddenly fell!

(Laughs.)

So it's true, with the villain, I have tied my fate! Murderer, monster, forever My soul belongs! by his criminal hand Both my life and my honor are taken, I am the fateful will of heaven Cursed together with the killer...		Simultaneously
Yes, yes, it’s true, I know three cards! The killer has three cards, she named three cards! It was destined to be so I had to commit a crime. I could only buy three cards at that price! I had to commit a crime So that at this terrible price I could recognize my three cards.		Simultaneously

But no, it can’t be! Come to your senses, Herman!

Hermann (in ecstasy)

Yes! I am the third who passionately loves,
I came to forcefully learn from you
About three, seven, ace!

No matter who you are, I am still yours!
Run, come with me, I will save you!

Yes! I learned, I learned from you
About three, seven, ace!

(He laughs and pushes Lisa away.)

Leave me alone! Who are you? I don't know you!
Away! Away!

(Runs away.)

He's dead, he's dead! And with him and me!

(Runs to the embankment and throws himself into the river.)

PICTURE SEVEN

Gambling house. Dinner. Some play cards.

Guest Choir

Let's drink and have fun!
Let's play with life!
Youth doesn't last forever
Old age is not long to wait!
Let our youth drown
In bliss, cards and wine.
They are the only joy in the world,
Life will fly by like in a dream!
Let our joy drown...

Surin (behind the cards)

Chaplitsky

I'm guessing passwords!

Chaplitsky

No passwords!

Chekalinsky (throws)

Would you like to bet?

Chekalinsky

I'm a Mirandolem...

Tomsk (to the prince)

How did you get here?
I haven't seen you around the players before.

Yes, this is my first time here.
You know what they say:
Unhappy in love
Happy in the game...

What do you want to say?

I'm not a groom anymore.
Don't ask me!
It hurts too much, friend.
I'm here to take revenge!
After all, happiness is in love
Brings misfortune with you into the game...

Explain what this means?

You will see!

Let's drink and have fun...

(Players join those having dinner.)

Chekalinsky

Hey gentlemen! Let Tomsky sing something to us!

Sing, Tomsky, something cheerful, funny...

I can't sing something...

Chekalinsky

Eh, come on, what nonsense!
Drink and sing! Good health to Tomsky, friends!
Hooray!..

Health Tomsky! Hooray!

If only lovely girls
So they could fly like birds,
And they sat on the branches,
I wish I was a bitch
So that thousands of girls
Sit on my branches.

Bravo! Bravo! Oh, sing another verse!

Let them sit and sing,
They built nests and whistled,
We would hatch chicks!
I would never bend
I would admire them forever,
He was the happiest of all the bitches.

Bravo! Bravo! That's the song!
This is nice! Bravo! Well done!
"I would never bend,
I would admire them forever,
I was the happiest of all the bitches.”

Chekalinsky

Now, according to custom, friends, let’s play!

So, on rainy days
They were going
Often;

So on rainy days
They were going
Often;

Chekalinsky, Chaplitsky, Narumov, Surin

They bent - God forgive them! -
From fifty
One hundred.

They bent - God forgive them -
From fifty
One hundred.

Chekalinsky, Chaplitsky, Narumov, Surin

And they won
And they unsubscribed
Chalk.

Chekalinsky, Chaplitsky, Narumov, Surin

So, on rainy days
They were studying
Business.

(Whistling, shouting and dancing.)

Chekalinsky

Let's get to work, gentlemen, get to the cards!
Guilt! Guilt!

(They sit down to play.)

Wine, wine!

Chaplitsky

To hell with it!

I'm betting on root...

Chaplitsky

Ten minutes from transport.

(Herman enters.)

Prince (seeing him)

My premonition did not deceive me,

(Tomsky.)

I may need a second.
Will you refuse?

Rely on me!

A! Herman, friend! Why is it so late? Where?

Chekalinsky

Sit down with me, you bring happiness.

Where are you from? Where were you? Isn't it in hell?
Look what it looks like!

Chekalinsky

It couldn't be more scary!
Are you healthy?

Let me put down a card.

(Chekalinsky silently bows in agreement.)

What a miracle, he started playing.

What a miracle, he began to pont, our Herman.

(Herman puts down the card and covers it with a bank note.)

Mate, congratulations on solving such a long post!

Chekalinsky

How much?

Forty thousand!

Forty thousand! That's the jackpot. Are you crazy?

Didn't you recognize the countess's three cards?

Hermann (irritated)

Well, do you hit or not?

Chekalinsky

It's coming! What card?

(Chekalinsky mosque.)

Won!

He won! What a lucky guy!

Chekalinsky, Chaplitsky, Tomsky, Surin, Narumov, choir

Chekalinsky

Do you want to receive?

No! I'm going around the corner!

He's crazy! Is it possible?
No, Chekalinsky, don't play with him.
Look, he's not himself.

Chekalinsky

Is it coming? And the map?

Here you go, seven! (Chekalinsky mosque.) My!

Him again! Something strange is happening to him.

Why are you hanging your noses?
Are you scared? (Laughs hysterically.)
Guilt! Guilt!

Herman, what's wrong with you?

Hermann (with glass in hand)

What is our life? - Game!
Good and evil are just dreams!
Labor and honesty are women's tales.
Who is right, who is happy here, friends?
Today you, and tomorrow me!
So give up the fight

Seize your moment of luck!
Let the loser cry
Let the loser cry
Cursing, cursing my fate.
What's true? There is only one death!
Like the shore of the sea of vanity,
She is a refuge for us all.
Which of us is dearer to her, friends?
Today you, and tomorrow me!
So stop fighting!
Seize your moment of luck!
Let the loser cry
Let the loser cry
Cursing my fate.

Is it still going?

Chekalinsky

No, get it!
The devil himself is playing with you!

(Chekalinsky puts the loss on the table.)

And if so, what a problem!
Anyone?
Is this all at stake? A?

Prince (stepping forward)

Prince, what's wrong with you? Stop it!
After all, this is not a game - madness!

I know what I'm doing!
We have a score to settle with him!

Hermann (embarrassed)

Do you, do you want?

You're telling me, Chekalinsky.

(Chekalinsky mosque.)

Hermann (opening the map)

No! Your lady is beaten!

Which lady?

The one you have in your hands is the queen of spades!

(The ghost of the Countess appears. Everyone retreats from Herman.)

Hermann (horrified)

Old woman!.. You! Are you here!
Why are you laughing?
You drove me crazy.
Damn! What,
What do you need?
Life, my life?
Take her, take her!

(Stabs himself. The ghost disappears. Several people rush to the fallen Herman.)

Unhappy! How terrible, he committed suicide!
He's alive, he's still alive!

(Herman comes to his senses. Seeing the prince, he tries to rise.)

Prince! Prince, forgive me!
It hurts, it hurts, I'm dying!
What is this? Lisa? Are you here!
My God! Why, why?
You forgive! Yes?
Don't you swear? Yes?
Beauty, Goddess! Angel!

(Dies.)

Lord! Forgive him! And rest in peace
His rebellious and tormented soul.

(The curtain falls quietly.)

Libretto of the opera “THE QUEEN OF SPACE”

Editor O. Melikyan
Tech. editor R. Neumann
Proofreader A. Rodewald

Signed for publication 1/II 1956
Ш 02145 Form. boom. 60×92 1 / 32 Paper. l. 1.5
Pech. l. 3.0. Academic ed. l. 2.62
Circulation 10,000. Zach. 1737
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17th printing house. Moscow, Shchipok, 18.