The Gambler

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was certain that the secret to winning was surprisingly simple: “to control oneself every minute, regardless of the ups and downs of the game, and not to fall into passion.” Despite this knowledge, Dostoyevsky gambled away all his money and that of his lover at the roulette tables of German health resorts - gambling was forbidden elsewhere - which brought them both to the brink of destitution. Nevertheless, he capitalized on his experiences of loss: in 1866, he freed himself from an extortionate publishing contract with the novel The Gambler, which he wrote under great pressure. And on top of that, he delivered a study of his own (gambling) obsessions. Half a century later, the young Sergei Prokofiev was fascinated by the panopticon of uprooted characters from the novel, who are stuck in the fictional Roulettenburg under the spell of the wheel that promises happiness: a retired general in debt with plans to get married. with plans to marry, a French woman who suspects he has a fortune, a marquis who advances money to the general because he is keen on his foster daughter Polina - and on the inheritance that the general impatiently awaits until the terminally ill, extremely wealthy relative turns up at the gambling table looking pug-faced. Everyone is acting in their own interests and for the sake of their own reputation. Only the tutor Alexei has neither money nor honor to lose. Infatuated with Polina to the point of insanity, he also ends up at the gambling table and bathes for a moment in the feeling of being on top. Axel Ranisch, who has already imaginatively and lovingly transported The Love for Three Oranges and Hansel and Gretel into the present day at the State Opera, will direct the Stuttgart premiere of Prokofiev's bitterly satirical opera: Roulettenburg as the last refuge of an international haute volée who, despite their main gain - namely having barely escaped a catastrophe - still believe that only those who effortlessly make the big bucks count.