Passion in ëSpadesí Tchaikovskyís Opera, Domingoís Singing Are Total Immersion Experience by Gary Tischler On stage, the man in his bright red Hussar uniform was tellingóand singingóthe story of the countess and the three cards. The man sitting next to me sighed with remembered satisfaction. ìYes, yes,î he whispered. ìDreikarten, dreikarten.î He sounded for all the world like a boy seeing ìStar Warsî yet again, nudging and whispering, ìHere comes the good part.î This wasnít ìStar Wars,î of course. This was the opening night of The Washington Operaís production of Tchaikovskyís dark and impassioned ìThe Queen of Spades,î and the great tenor and the companyís artistic director Pl·cido Domingo would be commanding the stage. ìThe Queen of Spadesî was a total immersion experience. It required opening yourself up to everything that goes with the opera. For example, although tendencies toward informal dress and behavior have spread to the workplace, the theater and all kinds of social functions, people still dress up for the opera. They behave with decorum and are never let into their seats after th e lights go down. This is about champagne glasses at intermission, fountains, librettos, little flashlights, tuxedos, nearly backless black cocktail dresses, jewelry that glitters in the dark, perfume and understated aftershave. It is about the overheard conversations discussing past performances and how wonderful Domingo looked and sounded. And the Kennedy Centerís Opera House is the perfect setting for everything opera: plush, deep-red seats and chandeliers. These are all necessary atmospherics and conventions. Theyíre the mints and hors dí oeuvres that go along with the main course, creating a powerful experience that lingers with audiences long after they leave their seats. ìThe Queen of Spadesî dates back to the 1890s when Tchaikovsky, himself not the model of stability, wrote the opera based on a story by Aleksandr Pushkin. It centers on an impoverished, feverish Russian officer in the late 1700s obsessed with his love for an aristocratic young woman already engaged to a prince. The officer is even more obsessed with finding out the secret of the ìthree cardsî possessed by his loverís forbidding aunt, which have the power to win him a fortune. Gambling, along with self-destructive passion, was a Russian 19th-century fever of Byronic scope. Readers will perhaps not be surprised to find that the three main characters end up dead. ìThis always happens in operas,î someone pointed out to me. At least it does in serious ones such as ìQueen,î as they so often do in Shakespearean tragedy as opposed to comedy or light opera. Domingo, dressed in dark colors, plays a man considerably younger than himself, courting a young girl, brandishing a pistol, baring his heart and soul, and pursuing the flame of his self-destruction. He sings with anguished sincerity, passion and soaring beauty. This is star power, opera style, and he makes it look and sound effortlessly convincing. One of the common complaints about opera is that it isnít ìrealistic.î But itís much more than that. The conventions and the stories may seem stylized, as indeed they are, and the arias and the duets overwrought, as indeed they are. Yet, the music, the acting, the detailed sets and costumes, and every little voice and act fuse to make you dream about the experience long afterward. Everything that happens on stage is in extremis, and the emotional clarity and reality is like the eye of a hurricaneóchildren singing in Russian, the entrance of Catherine the Great, the countess (the haunting mezzo soprano Elena Obraztsova), remembering her youth in a haunting voice that grips your heart, Domingo and soprano Galina Gorchakova flying away in a duet, and the most chilling words heard at 18th-century courts: ìOur host would now like to present a little pastoral.î ìThe Queen of Spadesî still has the quality of a gypsy curseóthe greatest love poem, the total romanticism of obsessive unhappiness, and the memory of past lives. Itís just another night at the opera. ìThe Queen of Spadesî plays at the Kennedy Center Opera House through June 8. For more information and specific show times, please call (202) 295-2400 or visit www.dc-opera.org. Gary Tischler is a contributing writer to The Washington Diplomat.