The Gambler

Felsenreitschule, Salzburg, Austria

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7 PM

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Important Info

Type: Opera

City: Salzburg, Austria

Starts at: 19:00

Acts: 4

Sung in: Russian

Titles in: German,English

Ticket delivery: E-Tickets

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

Can I choose my seats?

Cast

Performers

Soprano: Asmik Grigorian (Polina)

Orchestra: Vienna Philharmonic

Choir: Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus

Bass: Peixin Chen (The General)

Tenor: Sean Panikkar (Alexei)

Conductor: Timur Zangiev

Mezzo-Soprano: Violeta Urmana (Grandma ("Babulenka"))

Creators

Composer: Sergei Prokofiev

Novelist: Fyodor Dostoevsky

Director: Peter Sellars

Overview

"What a pleasure it would be for me to throw all this accursed money into his face." New production

Throughout his life, Sergey Prokofiev experimented avidly with virtually every possible musical genre. In most of them, he wrote masterpieces that earned him a certain recognition. In opera, however, frustration and a sense of failure prevailed. The composer’s opera projects were systematically misunderstood, thwarted, delayed or cancelled – at odds with history.

The Gambler is Prokofiev’s first major opera, which he embarked upon in 1914 by adapting a short novel by Dostoyevsky. In this work, the novelist probes his own addiction to gambling to tell the story of a rush to the abyss, a merciless act of self-destruction. In so doing, he dissects our general appetite for easy gains and quick successes. The book is set in the casino of an imaginary town, Roulettenburg, where various characters meet and clash – among them a General in debt to a greedy Marquis, the General’s spiteful stepdaughter Polina, and Alexey, who is in love with her.

The Gambler marked the first time in history that a novel by Dostoyevsky had been adapted for opera. Dispensing with a librettist, the composer drew directly from the novel, extracting sentences from it and arranging them himself. He found in this short work enough material to write a resolutely radical score, liberated from division into musical numbers and held together from start to finish by gripping musical prose. The orchestra is dominated by a haunting ostinato that conveys the passions stirring in the casino. Prokofiev submitted his project to Sergey Diaghilev, who rejected it out of hand. The composer did not admit defeat, however, and persevered. The premiere of The Gambler was on the brink of becoming a reality in 1917, when pioneering director Vsevolod Meyerhold planned to stage it at the Mariinsky Theatre. Meyerhold saw in The Gambler an opportunity for authentic avant-garde opera, a work capable of pushing the genre into entirely new dimensions. From the outset, a highly creative spirit of emulation took hold of both composer and director, promising an extraordinary work. But suspicion spread like wildfire during the opera’s preparation: the singers rejected the score on the grounds that it was unsingable, the bourgeois intelligentsia were suspicious of a work labelled ‘futuristic’, and the revolutionaries considered Dostoyevsky to be decadent. The final blow was dealt by the October Revolution. The project was abandoned.

Prokofiev continued to fight throughout his life to stage The Gambler. Ten years after this aborted premiere, he revised his score – amending the vocal parts and tightening up the orchestration until he had arrived at cataclysmic episodes, particularly the breathtaking climax of the third act, in which all the characters’ voices and aspirations intertwine in a truly unprecedented whirlwind.

The premiere of The Gambler finally took place in Brussels in April 1929, albeit in a French translation of the libretto. In Russia, however, the political environment was unfavourable to a project that did not satisfy any of the canons of socialist realism. Meyerhold, a victim of Stalin’s Great Purge, was executed in 1940. The avant-garde opera dreamed up by two visionary artists never came to fruition. The first Russian production of The Gambler took place only in 1974 – almost twenty years after Prokofiev’s death.

Today, Prokofiev’s opera is at once relevant and topical, indeed, astonishingly so. Uncertainty and anxiety dominate the spirit of the age. Every morning brings a new gamble. Fortunes are made and lost in the blink of an eye. More than ever, the casino and the feeling of suspense that permeates it are metaphors for our world, its frenzy and abysses. It is a safe bet that director Peter Sellars, renowned for his penetrating approach to little-known and forgotten masterpieces, will invite us to show the same courage as Dostoyevsky and Prokofiev – the courage to confront our dark sides, the courage to question our moral contradictions, the courage to look ourselves in the face.

Antonio Cuenca Ruiz
Translation from the French: Patrick Lennon

History

Premiere of this production: 30 November 1928, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels

The Gambler is an opera in four acts by Sergei Prokofiev to a Russian libretto by the composer, based on the 1866 story of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Synopsis

Place: Roulettenburg, a fictional European spa resort
Time: The 1860s

Act 1
In the Grand Hotel garden, Alexei, tutor to the General's family, meets Polina, the General's ward, who is in debt to the Marquis. Alexei loves Polina, and informs her that he observed her directions to pawn her jewelry and gamble with the funds. However, he lost the money. The General is enamoured of the much younger demimondaine Blanche, and enters with her, the Marquis and Mr Astley, an Englishman. When asked about his losses, Alexei says he lost his own savings. He is chided that someone of his modest income should not gamble, but Alexei dismisses the idea of saving money with a caustic diatribe. Astley is impressed and invites Alexei to tea. The General then receives a telegram from "Babulenka" (literally a diminutive of 'grandmother'; she is, in fact, the General's aunt and Polina's grandmother) in Moscow. The General is hoping that Babulenka will die soon so that he can inherit her money and marry Blanche.

Polina is frustrated that she cannot repay her debts to the Marquis. While Alexei continues to protest that he loves her, she wonders if he has any other interest than greed. The General interrupts their conversation. Polina challenges Alexei to prove his love, and to see if he would truly do anything for her, by making a pass at a German Baroness sitting in the park. Alexei does this, to the anger of the Baron. In the ensuing fuss, the Baron and Baroness leave.

Act 2
In the hotel lobby, the General reproaches Alexei for his actions. Alexei is unrepentant, upon which the General dismisses him as his family tutor. The General then tries to obtain the help of the Marquis in preventing any appearance of a scandal. Mr. Astley enters, and explains to Alexei the General's concerns. Blanche had earlier asked the Baron for a loan, which upset the Baroness. Because of the high social status of the Baron and Baroness, the General is keen to avoid any sense of impropriety. Astley further explains that the General cannot propose to Blanche until he receives his share of the inheritance from Babulenka. Alexei begins to think that once Polina receives her own share of the inheritance, the Marquis will attempt to win her over.

The Marquis appears on the General's behalf, to try to mollify Alexei's behaviour. Alexei is contemptuous to the Marquis, until the Marquis produces a note from Polina, which calls on Alexei to stop behaving like a schoolboy. Alexei accuses him of making Polina write the letter and leaves in anger. The Marquis tells the General and Blanche that he was successful in subduing Alexei.

The General predicts Babulenka's death that same evening, but immediately afterward, her voice is heard, as she has arrived at the hotel, in good health. She greets Alexei and Polina with some affection, but at once she sees through the General and the others. She says that she has overcome her illness and plans to recuperate, and gamble, at the spa.

Act 3
At the casino, Babulenka has been losing her money at the roulette tables, and ignoring all pleas to stop. The General is despondent and sees his chances with Blanche diminish. After the Marquis tells just how much Babulenka has lost, the General suggests to summon the police but The Marquis dissuades him. Alexei arrives, and the General and the Marquis ask for his help to halt Babulenka's gambling losses. Prince Nilsky, another potential suitor to Blanche, then arrives and further enumerates Babulenka's losses. The General collapses, distraught, and then runs into the casino. Blanche departs with Nilsky. Alexei wonders of what will happen with Polina's family, after Babulenka's financial losses. Babulenka, exhausted and depleted of funds, wants to go home to Moscow. Babulenka asks Polina to come with her, but declines. The General bewails Babulenka's losses and his own loss of Blanche to Nilsky.

Act 4
In his hotel room, Alexei finds Polina, who has a letter from the Marquis. The Marquis says he is selling General's properties mortgaged to him, but will forgive fifty thousand for Polina's sake, and Marquis will consider their relationship as over. Polina feels this paying her off as an insult and wish she had fifty thousand to fling at Marquis's face. Alexei is deliriously pleased that Polina has turned to him for assistance.

Rushing to the casino, Alexei has a run of good luck, winning twenty times in a row and breaking the bank. After an entr'acte, the other patrons continue to talk about Alexei's run. Alexei returns to his room, yet he continues to hear the voices of the croupiers and the other gamblers. He then becomes aware of Polina who has been waiting for him. He offers her funds to pay the Marquis back. She refuses and asks whether he really loves her. When Alexei gives her the money, she tosses it back in his face and runs out. The opera ends with Alexei alone in the room, recalling obsessively his success at the tables.

Venue Info

Felsenreitschule - Salzburg
Hofstallgasse 1

The Felsenreitschule (literally "rock riding school") is a theatre in Salzburg, Austria and a venue of the Salzburg Festival.

History

A first Baroque theatre was erected in 1693–94 at the behest of the Salzburg prince-archbishop Johann Ernst von Thun, according to plans probably designed by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. Built in the former Mönchsberg quarry for conglomerate rock used in the new Salzburg Cathedral construction, it was located next to the archiepiscopal stables (at the site of the present Großes Festspielhaus) and used as a summer riding school and for animal hunts. The audience was seated in 96 arcades carved into the Mönchsberg rock on three floors. After the secularisation of the prince-archbishopric, the premises were used by the cavalry of the Austrian Imperial-Royal Army as well as by Bundesheer forces after World War I.

From 1926, the Felsenreitschule was used as an open-air theatre for performances of the Salzburg Festival. With the auditorium reversed, the former audience arcades now served as a natural stage setting. The first production was Carlo Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters, directed by Max Reinhardt. In 1933, Clemens Holzmeister designed for Max Reinhardt the "Faust Town", a multiple-stage setting for Reinhardt's legendary production of Goethe's Faust.

In 1948 Herbert von Karajan first used the Felsenreitschule as an opera stage, for performances of Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. This was followed in 1949 by the premiere of Carl Orff's setting of the ancient tragedy Antigone by Sophocles, translated into German by Friedrich Hölderlin, conducted by Ferenc Fricsay. Between 1968 and 1970, the Felsenreitschule was again remodeled according to plans by Clemens Holzmeister and inaugurated with Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio under the baton of Karl Böhm.

Architecture

The stage has a width of 40 metres (130 ft), and 4 metres (13 ft) understage. Also renovated was the cantilevered grandstand with the underlying scene dock. A light-tight, rain tarp to dampen the noise and protect the stage was also added. This roof can be opened. The theater holds 1412 seats and 25 standing places.

Between the summers of 2010 and 2011 festival, the roof was renewed: The new design added 700 square metres (7,500 sq ft) of floor space for equipment and rehearsal rooms. The new pitched roof consists of three mobile segment surfaces and is on five telescopic arms and can be extended and retracted in six minutes. Suspension points on telescopic supports for stage equipment (hoists), improved sound and heat insulation, and two lighting bridges optimize the action on stage. The Felsenreitschule shares its foyer with the Kleines Festspielhaus (House for Mozart).

In popular culture
The Felsenreitschule was used as a location for the 1965 film version of The Sound of Music. It appears as the site of the Salzburg music festival from which the von Trapp family disappear.

Important Info

Type: Opera

City: Salzburg, Austria

Starts at: 19:00

Acts: 4

Sung in: Russian

Titles in: German,English

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