The Queen of Spades is a short story by renowned Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky modified it into a fairly well known opera with music. The opera libretto is by Modest Tchaikovsky, the composer's brother. The first performance was on 19 December 1890 in Saint Petersburg. Pushkin's original story was rewritten dramatically before it was suitable to be turned into an opera. In the operatic treatment, Herman is a an army officer who falls in love with Lisa, the granddaughter of a Countess who was taught the "secret of the three cards", and was subsequently known as the Queen of Spades. She has revealed the secret to two men, but if she reveals it to a third, she will die. Herman becomes obsessed with learning the secret, and it costs him his possessions, Lisa and, ultimately, his own life.
In Pushkin's original story, the love affair with Lisa, although still an important plot event, is subsidiary to Herman's obsession with the secret of the cards. Herman is ultimately driven mad, but does not die, while Lisa goes on to live happily.
It is a well-known sort of tale and would have been more so when it was written, for there were many such stories about card games with a number of astonishing secret in the literature of the time. It looks at how Pushkin's version differs in the way it handles the supernatural element and in the twist that he places at the end of the story.
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