Jonathan Beyer / Reseñas

When José Luis Moscovich came onstage at Palo Alto’s Lucie Stern Theatre on Friday, May 20, the applause and cheers for West Bay Opera’s general director went on so long he had to sheepishly and repeatedly signal for silence. The audience celebration was well deserved. Friday’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame (or, The Queen of Spades) was a reunion, the company’s first staging before a live audience since the pandemic began.

Woodwinds and strings sing in gentle, back-and-forth conversation before other instruments begin to join, building into rolling climaxes of commanding brass and timpani and all leading to a sense of foreboding as projected on the walls before us are splashed, red blotches mingled in a flurried mix of numbers and symbols. Eventually queens appear from their deck of cards to dance about the stage in projected frenzy as the music once again shifts in nature. Black shadows and smoky clouds finally escort the Queen of Spades to rule in her projected state with the orchestra’s outstanding overture leaving us with a final sense of foreboding and unease.