Pique Dame

It could have been one of those love stories with obstacles: Hermann is secretly in love with Lisa, and she also has feelings for him - if only it weren't for the prince, whom Lisa is soon to marry. But Hermann has another problem, because he, who has no financial means, feels like an absolute outsider in a society where money alone decides whether you belong.
Then Hermann discovers a secret. Lisa's grandmother, known as the "Queen of Spades", supposedly knows which combination of cards in a game of chance will always lead to a win. But in order to find out the secret, someone has to die. How far is Hermann prepared to go? Over this question, he increasingly loses sight of Lisa and his entire environment ...
Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote his penultimate opera The Queen of Spades in just 44 days during a stay in Florence in 1890, as if in a fever. The result: music that is bursting with tension and expressivity, intoxicating and exuberantly varied, that empathizes with the main characters of the story, but also does not shy away from looking into the abysses of a soul tormented by obsessions and delusions. Director Roland Schwab follows Hermann in his desperate search for happiness and at the same time casts a harsh light on a society for which Hermann's impending downfall is nothing more than an amusingly gruesome spectacle.