[1] 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.

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 French title of Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades", on which its libretto is very loosely based.

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.

[3][4][7] The story concerns the tribulations of the young lovers, Emil, an impoverished composer, and Hedwig, the daughter of a wealthy widow.

Another fine lyric theme and a gay melody are added, and a rushing brilliant coda brings the overture to a happy conclusion.

(The Judith sound track encompassed 11 pieces in all, beginning with music from Wallace's opera Maritana and ending with Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite.