This Queen of Spades is an eighty minute ballet adapted by Gabriel Thibaudeau from Tchaikovsky’s opera. While the majority of the music here is Tchaikovksy’s (including scenes, dance sequences, and arias from the opera), Thibaudeu incorporates his own music as well, most conspicuously the “motto” theme which opens the ballet and frequently reappears to act as bridge between sections. The result is a pastiche similar in concept to Stravinsky’s The Fairy’s Kiss. But whereas Stravinsky, through his thorough immersion in Tchaikovsky’s idiom, creates a seamless stylistic blending of two great musical personalities, Thibaudeu’s own contributions, with their piquant harmonies and driving rhythms stand squarely outside Tchaikovsky’s stylistic range, making for some rather stark contrasts.
Also, Thibaudeu doesn’t restrict himself to one great Russian ballet master for this “adaptation”, as he includes hints of Prokofiev for dramatic effect where he sees fit (most notably in the finale, which is strictly of Thibaudeu’s devising) not that there’s anything particularly wrong with that. Jacques Lacombe leads a rhythmically alert performance with the Orchestre des Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal that points up the very close kinship of Tchaikovsky’s operas to his ballets (stylistically the music resembles The Sleeping Beauty most of all). Fans of the original Queen of Spades will most likely miss the passionate histrionics they would hear on the operatic stage, but those who love Tchaikovsky’s ballet music for its own sake have a delightful new work to savor.
