68 (Russian: Пиковая дама, Pikovaya dama listenⓘ, French: La Dame de Pique) is an opera in three acts (seven scenes) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on the 1834 novella of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, but with a dramatically altered plot.

[2] The Imperial Theatre offered Tchaikovsky a commission to write an opera based on the plot sketch by Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1887/88.

[2] Later, working with the tenor who was to perform the lead character, he created two versions of Herman's aria in the seventh scene, using different keys.

While composing the music, Tchaikovsky edited the libretto significantly, changing some of the text and adding his own lyrics to two arias.

The part was written with the notable Russian tenor Nikolay Figner in mind, and he performed it at the premiere.

When Yeletsky and the women leave, Herman is lost in thought as the other officers discuss the Countess: known as the Queen of Spades and formerly as the Muscovite Venus, due to her beauty, she succeeded at gambling in her youth by trading amorous favors for the winning formula of Count St. Germain in Paris.

Tomsky says only two men, her husband and, later on, her young lover, ever learned the secret of playing three special cards, because she was warned by an apparition to beware a "third suitor" who would kill her trying to force it from her.

Scene 2 At home, Lisa plays the spinet as she and her friend Polina sing a duet about evening in the countryside.

When the Countess is heard knocking, Lisa hides Herman and opens the door to the old woman, who tells her to shut the windows and go to bed.

Scene 1 Not long afterward, at a masked ball, Herman's comrades comment on his obsession with the secret of the winning cards.

Tsurin and Chekalinsky sneak up behind him with the intent of playing a joke on him, muttering he is the "third suitor" who will learn the Countess's secret, then melt into the crowd as Herman wonders whether he is hearing things.

The guests' attention turns to the imminent arrival of Catherine the Great, for which a polonaise by Osip Kozlovsky is played and sung in greeting.

Scene 2 Herman slips into the Countess's room and looks in fascination at her portrait as the "Muscovite Venus"; musing how their fates, he feels, are linked: one of them will die because of the other.

He lingers too long before he can go to Lisa's room and hears the Countess's retinue coming, so he conceals himself as the old lady approaches.

The Countess deplores the manners of the day and reminisces about the better times of her youth, when she sang in Versailles "Je crains de lui parler la nuit" ("I fear to talk with him at night", in French; Laurette's Aria from André Grétry's opera Richard Cœur-de-Lion) before the Pompadour herself.

Scene 1 In his room at the barracks, as the winter wind howls, Herman reads a letter from Lisa, who wants him to meet her at midnight by the river bank.

Scene 2 By the Winter Canal, Lisa waits for Herman: it is already near midnight, and though she clings to a forlorn hope that he still loves her, she sees her youth and happiness swallowed in darkness.

Scene 3 At a gambling house, Herman's fellow officers are finishing supper and getting ready to play faro.

Seeing the Countess's ghost laughing at her vengeance, Herman takes his own life and asks Yeletsky's and Lisa's forgiveness.