Chicago Sun Times - Recommended
"...With a libretto co-written by Tchaikovsky and his brother, Modest, this opera tells the story of two lonely, in some ways desperate people - Gherman (Sycamore, Illinois, tenor Brandon Jovanovich) and Lisa (Sondra Radvanovsky) - from different social classes who improbably fall in love."
Daily Herald - Recommended
"...This masterpiece is truly Russian. It is written by Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky with libretto by his brother Modest Tchaikovsky and is based on the novella by famous Russian poet and writer Alexander Pushkin. For almost four hours, the Lyric Opera's audiences have a chance to hear this opera performed in the Russian language with projected English translations right in the heart of Chicago, one of the most diverse cities in America."
Chicago On the Aisle - Recommended
"...But this willfully shocking “Queen of Spades,” from 2000 and revived here by Benjamin Davis, remains mostly confusing. For an opera like Puccini’s “La bohème,” which is after all an American cultural meme – with Jonathan Larson’s Broadway show “Rent,” the Cher-driven movie “Moonstruck” – a revisionist take could well be understood as a riff on something familiar. It might be to viewers’ high delight, or to their high dudgeon, but at least there would be a broadly shared point of reference and some potential beguilement in the argument."
Stage and Cinema - Recommended
"...The Queen of Spades is a strange, yet haunting opera. In its depiction of madness, it is reminiscent of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, yet without the bel canto vocal fireworks. Instead, Tchaikovsky uses the orchestra, especially the brass section, to full, dramatic effect in the climactic ending of each scene. Tchaikovsky’s penultimate opera deserves to be much better known, just not in this weirdly creative and so very disappointing production by Richard Jones."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...It's a challenging work that musically draws on everything from baroque opera, to Russian folk song, to symphonic rumbling, and the story it depicts is one of isolation and heartless cruelty. But the production originally directed by Brandon Jones, now playing for the first time at the Lyric, captures the anxieties as well as the absurdities that have only made this work more resonant."
Chicagoland Musical Theatre - Somewhat Recommended
"...However, without spoiling plot elements for prospective audience members, it must be said that the staging of the pivotal scene that opens act three undercuts a lot of these choices in using elements that are either more comedic in practice than in conception or else just plain incongruous with the dramatic import of the action. As a result, the jarring effect undoes a little bit of the spell weaved by the more restrained staging of the first two acts and it takes a bit for the disbelief to be re-suspended and for the opera and the audience to get back on the same page."
Third Coast Review - Recommended
"...The Lyric Opera’s revival of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 1890 opera The Queen of Spades, directed by Benjamin Davis, will fit into the WTF category for many attendees—but not necessarily in a bad way. If you are open to new experiences and want to see things you likely have never seen on a stage, and may never see again, then this may just be the right opera for you."
Picture This Post - Highly Recommended
"...This is a brilliant stroke, in this writer's view, to silently and powerfully frame this revival of Tchaikovsky's THE QUEEN OF SPADES with a Freud-ish-if not purely Freudian-lens. Underneath all the kerfuffle, it's all about staring mortality down. SPOILER ALERT!! That haunting Venus of Moscow visage returns in the last act, now more like the hint of one-time flower you tread upon in a wintry forest hike. Almost gasp worthy in its power, this visual haunts. It more than prepares us for the last scene, when Peter Illyich's brother Modest Tchaikovsky's libretto has the characters singing round the gambling table-to paraphrase-life is short so you better drink, whore around, and take your chances before it's too late."
NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Sir Andrew Davis and his orchestra explore every color and nuance of this heady, sexy score and then disappear at all the right moments, content to allow the story to be carried on their electric current. Chorus master Michael Black’s charges are simply perfect in every way, both in the delivery of their singing and their “interesting” blocking about which, once again, I will say no more."
