Dostoyevsky knew what he was talking about. He wrote The Gambler in just 26 days to meet a strict deadline and earn urgently needed money to pay his gambling debts. Alexej is a member of a rather shady entourage in the ficticious spa of Roulettenburg where only relics of emotions remain and love, thought of as a human weakness, is used for financial gain: the retired General has fallen in love again, with Blanche, who is only interested in how much money he is worth. He is bankrupt and has put everything he owns in hock with the marquis, who has taken a fancy to Polina, the general’s foster-daughter, who is also in debt to him. Alexej is in love with her too. When the General’s rich aunt, thought to have been at death’s door, turns up, fighting fit, intending to gamble away her fortune instead of leaving it to her relatives, all family ties go by the board.
    Prokofiev wrote the libretto himself: »The Gambler is gripping and because it consists almost entirely of dialogue I have been able to retain Dostoevsky’s style in the opera.«. Harry Kupfer returns to Frankfurt, where he has recently directed Palestrina and The Damnation of Faust for this new production.