Enamoured with an unknown lady, a young soldier discovers that her grandmother holds a secret to win at cards. Although his beloved requites his love, happiness slips out of reach when his obsession with the powerful secret drives him to madness. Set in imperial Russia, Tchaikovsky’s late brooding thriller about a fanatic gambler is a tour de force of stirring melancholy, consuming passion and grand sweeping orchestration. If the opera saw the light of day thanks to his brother, the librettist Modest Tchaikovsky, The Queen of Spades soon became Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky’s personal obsession: composed in only 44 days, he considered it a masterpiece.

Liza’s life seems completely hopeless. From morning till night, she sells fish at a wholesale market, endures her boss’s rudeness, and returns home to a nagging stepmother and a constantly drunk father. Every day, walking past the city’s central streets, she gazes longingly at the shop windows behind which lies another, fairy-tale world — a world of happy people. Just when Liza is ready to give up hope of changing her life, fate suddenly smiles on her: she gets a job at an elite flower salon. But on her very first day, she is fired — she has neither the upbringing nor the manners expected there. Even dressed in an expensive uniform, she still seems like a market vendor. Determined to change her fate, Liza decides to become a true lady and win her place back. Fortunately for her, Professor Levitin — a philologist, aristocrat, and refined gentleman — is looking for a student…