The recent Met production of Prokofiev’s 1929
The Gambler serves to remind us that not all passions that seethe and scorch their way through opera have to do with sex. Be it via
roulette, card games, dice games –- some operatic characters go so far as to stake their lives on Chance. The intensity of
The Gambler is clear from its very setting, a German spa named "Roulettenberg," modeled after the genuine Wiesbaden, where Dostoevsky -- upon whose
story the opera is based -- himself met with grief at the gaming tables. Prokofiev's anti-hero, Alexei, in love with Pauline, sees winning big as the way to her heart...he particularly seeks to pay off the debt her family owes to a French marquis, and to thus make her indebted emotionally to him. He becomes hooked, first at
Roulette and then at the roulette-like card game,
Trent-et-Quarante (aka "Rouge et Noir"). Alexei's system, betting only on red, the middle dozen numbers, and zero, initially breaks the bank; he then switches to playing just on red, and just keeps on winning. Instead of being impressed, Pauline is disgusted by his obsession and throws his winnings back at him. The opera ends with his feverish return to the gaming tables, his love for Pauline all but forgotten. (A secondary character [Paulina's grandmother], an elderly woman with an ironic affection for the number zero, becomes temporarily addicted to roulette and loses millions playing only that number -- we can guess that this is how Alexei may end up.)
Roulette also features in some versions of Bernstein's 1956
Candide, in the ensemble number "What’s the Use." The Prefect of Constantinople owns a clip joint named the Gold Mine; the ensemble, which involves the Prefect, a crooked police chief, and some cheating gamblers, serves as a metaphor for "what goes around comes around" –- their mutual dishonesty, from rigged tables to bribes to winning "systems" guarantees they each make money, but they lose it just as quickly to the others' nefariousness.
What about Tchaikovsky’s 1890 The Queen of Spades aka Pique Dame? Blackjack (aka "Vingt-et-Un") is the demonic draw there; it requires that players bet on how their hand compares with that of the dealer. When Hermann hears that the old Countess, who had lost heavily at the game, had turned her luck around by playing three particular cards, he becomes obsessed with winning with that legendary combination. He literally scares her to death when he stalks her down to interrogate her, but then her ghost comes back to name the cards: three, seven, and Ace (11) which add up to the magical 21. When Hermann goes to the tables, he is so sure of himself that he places an enormous bet 40,000 rubles -- and indeed draws a three. Then, betting double or nothing, he draws a seven. But when he wagers all he has on the likelihood of an Ace, he draws…the Queen of Spades, a losing card, and commits suicide on the spot as the specter of the Countess appears before him to gloat over her revenge! Incidentally, during the fortune-telling scene of Bizet's 1875 Carmen, a Spade (of any denomination) is referred to as the "death card" – as she draws it, Carmen sings, "If you must die, you can draw twenty times and the same card will always repeat: 'Death…always Death.'"
