It really deserves to be heard & seen: baritone Charlie Epps on Gothic Opera’s UK premiere production of Halévy’s La Dame de Pique

Charles-Aimable Battaille as André Roskow in Fromental Halévy’s La Dame de Pique at the Opéra Comique in 1850

 Gothic Opera’s production of Fromental Halévy’s La Dame de Pique opens this Thursday (29 October 2026) at Battersea Arts Centre, directed by Jonny Danciger, conducted by Hannah von Wiehler. 

Loosely based on the Pushkin story of the same name, Halévy’s La Dame de Pique pre-dates Tchaikovsky’s better-known opera adaptation by forty years and premiered at the Opéra Comique in 1850.

Saskia Bibb hears from baritone Charlie Epps, who plays the role of André Roskaw on 29 and 31 October.

So you’ve just finished studying at Royal Welsh College of Music and
Drama. Tell me how this project has helped with starting out in the
profession.

It’s really important that these opportunities exist, where there’s a fully staged,
fully invested-in and believed-in opera. The fact that it hasn’t been performed
for so long makes for a perfect opportunity for young artists to revive it and, in
many ways, to invent something new. There are some stage directions and
some documented evidence of how it would have been performed at the
premiere, but there’s a lot of space for creativity as well, which Jonny [the
director] has really tapped into.

This is my first professional role – and the audition was my first professional
audition – so it’s also great not having to compare myself to anyone else who
may have performed the role! You’re creating a standard for yourself, with
people around you who are in the same boat. It’s a really nice way to start
and to gain experience.

Tell us about your character. How do you see him?

André Roskaw has been made chief foreman of the Anzin coal mines, owned
by Lisanka’s benefactress, Princess Polowska. He really feels his status:
Lisanka isn’t from the aristocracy, but nor is she from working stock, whereas
Roskaw was a physical labourer before and feels unsure in his new position.
I’ve tried to bring some of that into the physicality. Roskaw is unstable, and
sometimes very direct in his interactions with the other characters. You see
this edge to him from the start.

Gambling is, of course, a central theme of this opera. Johnny has talked
about how important gambling was in society at the time and how rife it was.
Even though it was officially banned, there was an honour code among
gamblers: if you didn’t pay your debts, you got a bad reputation. Roskaw has
a bit of a bad reputation among the miners.

He’s also a ruminator, someone who fixates on things. From the beginning,
he’s obsessed with money and thinks about gambling all the time. He says
that has one pleasure and one wish: the game. He’s consumed by his fixation
on gold, repeating, “de l’or, de l’or… encore, encore”.

At university I played Joe Keller in All My Sons, and I’m finding something
similar in this role: I have a deep dark secret — do I confess it or withhold it?

It’s a fairly obscure opera, not staged since its premiere. Would you say
it deserves to be done more often? What have you enjoyed about the
music?

It really deserves to be heard and seen.

The music is very French. That’s something we noticed straight away in its
character; it’s very romantic. My aria has a lot of harmonic changes and
moves frenetically from one idea to the next, with a lot of repetition in the text.
In Roskaw’s music generally, there’s a lot of tremolo, a lot of diminished
chords, jumping and sliding into other keys. It’s very stormy music. To offset
that, you get Constantin’s aria that follows, which is much more lyrical, gentle,
idyllic and picturesque. So there’s a lot of contrast.

Another great thing is the detail in the big ensembles and finales. People are
coming in and out, a bit like some of the scenes in Onegin, with lots of little
interactions and gossip between the characters happening at the same time.
The chorus appear as miners, soldiers and even revolutionaries.

I was talking to Johnny about this the other day: why did such brilliant writing
get neglected? We wondered whether it simply wasn’t well received at its
premiere. There are plenty of operas that weren’t well received initially, like
The Barber of Seville and some of Mozart’s operas, because they didn’t suit
audiences’ tastes at the time. And as an opéra comique, it might have been
seen as a bit trivial, especially as the really big, heavy operas started to
dominate soon afterwards. Whatever the reason, I see it as a really rich vein
from which to create something fresh.

What did you find most challenging about the role?

You could call Roskaw a monomaniac, specifically for gambling. The difficulty
for me is showing tension in the body without letting it get into your shoulders,
your neck, and especially your tongue and jaw. Johnny has been helping me
with that. You can show a lot in your arms, and that will read well onstage.
Roskaw is a physical person and an unstable character. When he gets
worked up, I’ve been trying to find the optimum amount of movement: enough
to make it read, without it becoming too busy.

I wonder – is he a victim of circumstances to some extent? It’s partly a story
about his rise from having nothing to suddenly earning proper money and
asking, what do I do with it, and where do I go from here? The challenge is
making that a trajectory, rather than holding the same extreme push and pull
feeling all the way through.

The opera premiered in 1850 and, in this production, is set during the
French Revolution. Do you think it has contemporary resonances?

It’s an opéra comique, but it has serious themes as well. Johnny is going for
some comic relief in the dialogue, while also making some more serious
social commentary.

There’s a lot of commentary on social mobility in the relationships between
the characters. Roskaw comes from a working-class mining background and
has made his way up, but he’s still very money-conscious. Lisanka and the
Princess have this line: “rules can be changed”. Zizianow believes in the
power of the family name, and that nobility grants you certain privileges.

There’s also this interesting standoff between Princess Poloska and Prince
Zizianow — the prince is snobbish and a chauvinist, while the princess
believes in social mobility. The prince feels that “you’re a princess, you’re
supposed to be on my team”. So there isn’t necessarily a determinism.
Roscoe’s not a working class hero either, he’s kind of a bad guy.

The work raises questions that feel very current: who gets to move up in
society, who wants to keep the doors closed, and what can sudden money do
to a person?

Perhaps we can end on a little teaser — what’s one thing about the
show that’s not to be missed?

There’s a wonderful duet between Roskaw and the Princess. It’s a beautiful
piece of writing, beautifully staged and we’ve done really detailed work on it.
You get ten minutes of tension, excitement and drama between two very
different characters. I think it stands up against other great duets that might
come more readily to mind from the canon.

Also, lanterns! It’s spooky, you see faces come out of the dark, people
emerging with unknown intentions…perfect for Halloween!

Gothic Opera’s production of Fromental Halévy’s La Dame de Pique is at Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) from 29 October to 1 November, see BAC’s website.