The Queen of Spades
"IT ig hatd to understand,’ wrote Cecil Smith of this week’s YC Opera "why the Queen of Spades has failed to win a substantial place in the contemporary operatic repertoire. . . The music is more varied in expression and less persistently sombre than that of Eugen Onegin. The vocal and orchestral parts, both separately and in their inter-relationship, aré haridsomely written and always sotitd well. There is not a dull.mofnent in the score, and bah moments are very high in"If the Queen of Spades is inferior in inspiration to the official Russian masterpiece, Moussorgsky’s Boris Godounov, I fail to see how; and it is ur-
deniably mofé sectire in , its practical craftsman- | ship." Tchaikovski started | work on this opéra (a'86, | incidetitally, kfiown as ; Piqtte Dame) after the production of his ballet _ The Sleeping Beauty in St Petersburg in ene ary, 1890. Most of the | opera was written in Flofenée, where the composer wert for arn extended holiday, and it had its first performance in December of the satrie year, again in St Petersburg, which is also the locale of the opera. Like his other wellknown opera Eugen Onegin (and the sticcessfill Mazepra) The Queen of Spades derives from Pushkin. Using the famous story of the same
flame as a basis, the composer’s brother Modeste wrote a libretto which stréssed the human,. the tragic and romantic possibilities of the characters, thereby giving more scope to Tchaikovski’s particular genius than the original story with its overtonés of morality and irony could possibly have done. The production to be heatd from all YCs at 7.0 p.m. on Sunday, July 28, is by the National Opera, Belgrade; with Valetia Meybalova (soprano) as Lisa, Biserka Tzveych (soprano) as Pauline, Melanie Bugarinovich (mezzo-soprano) as the Countess, Alexander Marinkrvich | (tenor) as Hermann, and Dushan Popovich (baritone) as Prince Yeletsky; together with other soloists, the Ytgoslav Army Chorus, Radio Belgrade Children’s Chorus, and the Orchestra of tthe National Opera, Belgrade, conducted by Kreshmir Baranovich.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19570719.2.29.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 936, 19 July 1957, Page 17
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329The Queen of Spades New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 936, 19 July 1957, Page 17
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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