Evening of operas by Dmitri Shostakovich: The Gamblers. The Big Lightning. Antiformalist Rayok

Synopsis

The Gamblers

A provincial inn. The room where the professional card sharper Ikharev is staying. He asks the local servant Alexey about the other guests: who they are, do they only play with each other, and where do they get their cards. Alexey names Colonel Krugel and Messrs Svokhnev and Uteshitelny and receives a generous reward. Ikharev then goes off to meet his neighbours.

In Ikharev’s absence, Alexey questions his valet Gavryushka about his life with the master. Krugel and Svokhnev, the inn guests, enter the room uninvited, send Alexey away and start questioning Gavryushka in their turn: where his master is from, does he gamble and whether he has won lately. Having learned that Ikharev recently won eighty thousand rubles, they suspect him of being a sharper. Gavryushka also receives a reward, and the gentlemen rush away.

Gavryushka is alone, musing about the joys of traveling with his master.

Ikharev returns. He dreams of beating his neighbors so much that he can’t even shave. From a box he takes out his treasured deck of marked cards dubbed “Adelaida Ivanovna”.

Alexey returns to ask for orders. Ikharev tells him to set the table for four. Gavryushka leaves to eat, and Ikharev gives Alexey a dozen decks of cards to plant them for his guests during the game.

Svokhnev, Krugel and Uteshitelny come to Ikharev. In the course of a polite conversation, a dispute arises about whether a person belongs entirely to the society or not. After enjoying some snacks, the company sits down at the card table, and the guests are eventually convinced that Ikharev is a sharper quite like themselves. Uteshitelny convinces the others not to try to beat Ikharev, but to unite with him. The guests openly admire Ikharev’s card-playing skills, and all four enter into a friendly alliance. The growing company exchanges amazing stories — about an eleven-year-old boy who cheats at cards with inimitable skill, about a certain respectable gentleman who, for a lot of money, studies the pattern of a card shirt and tells its key, and also about smart ways to put marked cards into circulation in a trading city or in a secluded estate.

In Gogol’s play, this is but the setup for a tight spiral of mutual fraud, but Shostakovich only completed the opera up to this point.

Still, in the finale of our production, Gogol’s main idea is revealed: even those who consider themselves cunning become pawns in someone else’s game.