The Queen of Spades, Royal Opera House, London

Tremendous drama, terrific voices

External links

Royal Opera House online

The remnants of a great palace; gilded balconies from a once-proud Opera; a snow drift. Imperial Russia in decay? Fractured dreams? Beware stage sets that try too hard to make statements. This one (from Peter J Davison) conceals Francesca Zambello's rather feeble production of Tchaikovsky's masterpiece The Queen of Spades. But the characters who pass through it on its first revival, are ennobled, made flesh and blood, by some pretty major talents. And in the pit, digging deep into the great score as if in search of some personal psychological truth, is Valery Gergiev. Bring on the drama.

A few years back, Gergiev gave London a concert performance of The Queen of Spades that completely floored all of us lucky enough to be there. There were moments here that came close, but only close, to reviving those memories. Even so, the contrast with Bernard Haitink's majestic but ultimately rather objective view of the piece at this production's premiere was acute, to say the least. For Gergiev, every bar is personal and every bar fraught with intrigue. He and the orchestra started nervily – the temperature slow to rise through the first couple of scenes – but already phrases moved as if Tchaikovsky's own hands were on the tiller, each sustained to the full extent of its note values, bows bearing heavily down on strings, end-cadences fiercely expectant.

Falling prey to that age-old theme, the corruption of love by money and class, were our two special principals: innocent and obsessive, angel and fallen angel, Lisa and Herman, Susan Chilcott and Placido Domingo. Domingo is extraordinary. Now in his sixties, the voice is still imposing – weathered and lived-in, it's true, but governed by great intelligence, passion, and conviction. He operates on a level of commitment higher than most of his contemporaries. He goes the extra distance. He's blessed, of course, with a natural stage presence – he is a real actor – and, as the shambling, haunted Herman, he looks as if the torment within might devour him at any moment. You believe in his vulnerability, you believe in his fatal attraction. So it doesn't much matter if a top B slips away from him in the opening scene or if the sound is no longer as beautiful or effortless – the intensity gets to you.

The look on Susan Chilcott's face said as much. Here's another natural: tall, beautiful, and seemingly fearless on stage. So much ability, so much engagement. The big shining moment when she asks Herman to stay with her, effectively sealing her fate, brought forth one of those notes that is so much more than can be defined in terms of sound or quality. And she and Domingo were simply tremendous in their harrowing final scene together.

Harrowing, too, describes the spectacle of Herman shaking the lifeless body of the Countess, as if the secret of the cards might simply spill from her mouth. Josephine Barstow's spidery performance is much better than first time round. Her ghostly reminiscences of past liaisons still verge on the inaudible, and even with Gergiev stilling the air from the pit, so that the merest shiver of strings and bass clarinet acts like a premonition of her final breaths, you still strain to hear her last words.

Luxury casting finds Nikolai Putilin slightly coasting in the role of Count Tomsky and Thomas Allen as Yeletsky doing anything but. It's the Domingo factor all over again. The bottom of Allen's voice kept threatening to break up in his wonderful Act II aria, but the artistry never deserted him. This is an aria about feeling that your greatest love is slipping away from you. Beautiful singing alone doesn't do it. But then, by and large, this was a good night for singing that did.

To 29 June (020-7304 4000)