"The Gambler" premiere

“You definitely won’t find us in the casino”

Matthias and Alexandra Winkler would rather be regulars at the Salzburg Festival than at the roulette table in the casino(Bild: Tschepp Markus)

The opera "The Gambler" is the penultimate premiere of this year's festival season.

Luck in gambling, bad luck in love. In Prokofiev's opera "The Gambler", based on Dostoyevsky's novel of the same name, the saying becomes the protagonist's fate. And he also has to realize: Gambling can be addictive.

Gaby Dohm(Bild: Tschepp Markus)

This is out of the question for Matthias and Alexandra Winkler. They prefer to have their luck in love and have been married for almost 20 years. "You'll never meet us in a casino. The hotel business is gambling enough," says Matthias Winkler.

"I have nothing to do with gambling in my private life. But I'm excited about this opera, which you rarely get to see anywhere," says actress Gaby Dohm.

Daniel Richter with his wife Hanna Putz(Bild: Tschepp Markus)

Opera superstar Asmik Grigorian, on the other hand, can be seen quite often on stage at the Salzburg Festival. And rightly so, according to many premiere visitors. In "The Gambler", she plays Polina, the General's stepdaughter. "The biggest problem for Polina is the struggle with herself and I can understand that, because I have always tried to find myself and still do today," says Grigorian.