Stirred but not shaken

Tchaikovsky was interested in states of mind, but not in the people who have them, at least in his operas. That was what I came to feel as I thought about why his most fascinating operas are in some respects so absorbing and in others not, why I tend to be moved by them at various points, but not cumulatively, as I am in the operas of the great masters. It was also the result of wondering why the Royal Opera’s revival of Queen of Spades, while superb in nearly every way, still didn’t leave me shaken. The thing that isn’t superb about it is Francesca Zambello’s production, first seen in 2001. For a fair amount of the time it is decent and straightforward, but it is handicapped by the absurd set designs of Peter J. Davison, who has rows of tilted theatre boxes on one side of the stage, with spectators coming and going in them, and for the second half of the evening a vast snowdrift obtruding from them, up and down, which the characters move. If this is symbolism, it is crass. But as is the way with all but the most infuriating sets, one learns to ignore it; and much of the action is worked out in a sensible and lucid manner.

The cast is distinguished, Vladimir Galouzine as Gherman being still more involved in the role than he was in 2001: introverted, edgy, awkward, his stages of desperation carefully mapped, this is a classic interpretation. Mlada Khudoley’s Liza is less intense, where in this opera of obsession, and with the driving force of her great aria, she needs to be as possessed about Gherman as he is about the cards.