Libretto
A professional card-sharp, Ikharev, and his servant Gavryushka, arrive at a country inn in the deep Russian provinces. The innkeeper’s servant Alexei tells him that there are three other guests staying, all gamblers. Ikharev immediately prepares his cards. The gamblers meet Gavryushka and pay him to tell them all about Ikharev. Gavryushka tells them only that his master is a gentleman and enjoys cards. Ikharev tells Alexei to provide drink and to pass the three gamblers a pack of cards he has ready. The three gamblers and Ikharev begin to play and it swiftly becomes apparent that everyone knows that everyone else is cheating. The three gamblers persuade Ikharev to join forces with them in a grand scheme involving tampering with packs of cards and selling them to unsuspecting people. They suggest various elaborate ways of doing this. Ikharev is tempted by the chance of such easy money.
[At this point, just before the end of Act I, Shostakovich’s setting of Gogol’s play breaks off. In the course of Acts ll and lll, other characters appear, each of whom falls haplessly into the swindling plot. At the end Ikharev imagines that he has won a great deal of money, until he discovers that all these other characters were actually part of the same swindling ring as the three gamblers. At that point he realises that it is he who has lost every penny. The opera of ‘The Gamblers’ has been completed by the Polish composer Krzysztof Meyer.]