Pique Dame (Suppé)

Pique Dame
Operetta by Franz von Suppé
Title page of the score for the Pique Dame overture, published in 1867
Translation	The Queen of Spades
Language	German
Premiere	June 1864 (1864-06) Thalia Theater, Graz

Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades) is an operetta in two acts by Franz von Suppé to a German-language libretto very loosely based on Alexander Pushkin's short story "The Queen of Spades". The author of the libretto is unknown. Pique Dame was a revised version of Suppé's 1862 operetta Die Kartenschlägerin ("The Fortune Teller") and premiered in June 1864 at the Thalia Theater in Graz. The work is primarily known today for its overture which remains a popular concert piece.

Pique Dame is a revised version of Suppé's earlier (and unsuccessful) one-act operetta on the same subject, Die Kartenschlägerin ("The Fortune Teller") which had premiered in Vienna in 1862. Suppé expanded the earlier version to two acts and retitled it Pique Dame, the German title of Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades", on which its libretto is very loosely based. The author of the libretto is unknown. The manuscript libretto is marked "S.S.". In Franz von Suppé: Werk und Leben, Hans-Dieter Roser speculates that this may have referred to Sigmund Schlesinger (1832–1918), a Viennese writer known for his short comic plays.

The new operetta premiered at the Thalia Theater in Graz in June 1864 with Amalie Materna singing the central role of Judith. The exact date of the premiere varies in the sources. According to Otto Schneidereit in Franz von Suppé: der Wiener aus Dalmatien, it was 24 June, while Roser gives the date as 20 June. Following the Graz premiere which had been personally supervised by Suppé, Pique Dame opened at the Carltheater in Vienna in 1865.

Although the work was fairly successful in its day, it is now rarely performed. Some of its music was later incorporated into Suppé's Boccacio when it was revived at the Metropolitan Opera in 1931, and the overture, published on its own in 1867, remains a popular concert and recording piece. A concert performance of Pique Dame conducted by Michail Jurowski was given at the Cologne Philharmonie on 1 December 2006 and broadcast on WDR radio on 29 December. A recording made in late November 2006 with the same cast was later released on CD.