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Queen of Spades at Garsington Opera (Photo: Clive Barda)

After the lavish, eye-popping set for L’elisir d’amore, a showcase for what Garsington Opera’s new studios can achieve, comes frugality. In its new production of The Queen of Spades, regular festival goers will recognise the enormous mobile mirrors and black umbrellas from the St Petersburg act of its 2016 Eugene Onegin. Well, we’re still in St Petersburg, albeit a few decades earlier, and it’s still Pushkin and Tchaikovsky, so set designer Tom Piper recycles elements of his Onegin set to striking effect.

Director Jack Furness plays with illusion, a game of smoke and mirrors in a terrifically atmospheric staging. Those mirrors make the setting seem more lavish – a single chandelier reflected five times – and the choral scenes more densely populated. They are also excellent for lurking, reinforcing the sense of the psychotic Herman as an outsider, and the mobile set aids fluid movement, meaning the action never sags. Incidentally, those mirrors are wonderful at focusing the sound, particularly the excellent Garsington Chorus.

Furness retains period costume and mostly follows the libretto faithfully. But he adds interesting touches and twists. During Tomsky’s Ballad of the Three Cards, crucial to the plot, there’s a dumbshow where the young Countess and the Count Saint-Germain appear and she whispers into Herman’s ear, the legend of her winning formula getting stuck into his head.

After some tongue-in-cheek cue cards opening a dance sequence at the masked ball (ménage à trois, double entendre), the pastoral interlude – which often has its moments of tedium – is enlivened by having the shepherdess played by Lisa. At the end of the ball scene, Catherine the Great’s appearance is curtailed when she takes a bullet fired by Herman.

Queen of Spades at Garsington Opera (Photo: Clive Barda)

Lizzie Powell’s lighting is outstanding. The moonlight bathing the stage as the aged Countess looks up from her armchair at her living portrait is beautiful and she throws stark shadows onto Lisa when she ends her life by diving into the canal, effected splendidly.

Furness’ staging is a triumph. In the final gambling scene, Herman risks everything on the Countess’ winning formula – Three, Seven, Ace – coming unstuck when his final card turns out to be the Queen of Spades. Deranged, he shoots himself and the chorus mourns… but not for long. Apart from a moved Tomsky and a concerned Yeletsky, they all go back to the table and resume their gambling. As Herman had expressed it in his final monologue, life is transitory, here today, gone tomorrow.

The casting of this Queen of Spades felt like a bit of a gamble. Not all the risks necessarily paid off, at least on opening night. I really liked Irish tenor Aaron Cawley’s Herman, although I suspect he’ll divide opinion. He has the just right type of voice for the role – plangent, intense, taut – and the right vocal weight, the voice forwardly placed. True, he sometimes started south of the note and his intonation was variable, but that goes with the territory in this histrionic role.

Laura Wilde was slow to make an impression as Lisa. Her soprano has a fabulous top, but her lower register could be a little anonymous. She warmed up well, though, and – vocally – things sizzled in the Act 1 duet with Herman, even if there was little physical chemistry between the two. Her canal scene contained some excellent singing.

Queen of Spades at Garsington Opera (Photo: Julian Guidera)

Robert Hayward sang a gnarly Tomsky, struggling to reach top notes, and Roderick Williams’ slender baritone sounded uncomfortably stretched by the long final phrase of Yeletsky’s show-stopping aria. Stephanie Wake-Edwards sang with rich mezzo tone as a characterful Polina, who definitely has a thing for Lisa here.

But stealing every scene was Diana Montague’s Countess. During the pastoral divertissement, the Countess is seated – reluctantly – in the audience and is truly appalled by the spectacle; the disdainful look Montague gives Yeletsky when he dares to applaud is priceless. Montague is still in good vocal shape, singing her Grétry aria beautifully, and the scene where Herman confronts her is gripping, forced into a passionate embrace before she expires.

Despite lacking a few sepulchral basses, robbing the final hymn some of its gravitas, the Garsington Chorus sang with energy, joined by the Youth Company, two of whom were evidently allowed to stay up late for the curtain call.

Douglas Boyd conducted a passionate account of the score, not always rewarded by the best woodwind playing (how many deps are in the Philharmonia’s ranks at Garsington, I wonder). Boyd’s pacing – like Furness’ direction – always propelled the action forward. An excellent, gripping evening.

Until 4 July garsingtonopera.org