Question: Which opera premiered first, Tosca or The Queen of Spades?
Context: Nigel Levings is an Australian stage lighting designer.  He has designed lights for over 400 productions.  He works extensively on operas, and has designed a large portion of Opera Australia's repertoire.  Some of his most significant works include operas such as "The Demon" at the Bregenz Festival and for Zurich Opera; "Billy Budd" for the Welsh National Opera, Opera Australia, Canadian Opera Company, and for the English National Opera; "Nabucco" for Opera Australia; "Wozzeck" for Opera Australia; "L'Orfeo" for Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik and the Berlin State Opera; "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for the 1994 Edinburgh Festival; "La Belle Vivette" for the English National Opera; "Simon Boccanegra" for the Royal Opera House, Washington National Opera, and Dallas Opera; "Falstaff" for Théâtre du Châtelet; "Idomeneo", "Turandot", and "The Barber of Seville" for the Houston Grand Opera; and "Queen of Spades" for the Dallas Opera. Pique Dame ("The Queen of Spades") is an operetta in two acts by Franz von Suppé to a German-language libretto very loosely based on Alexander Pushkin's short story "The Queen of Spades".  The author of the libretto is unknown.  "Pique Dame" was a revised version of Suppé's 1862 operetta "Die Kartenschlägerin" ("The Fortune Teller") and premiered in June 1864 at the Thalia Theater in Graz.  The work is primarily known today for its overture which remains a popular concert piece. The Queen of Spades (Russian: "Пиковая дама" , translit.  "Pikovaya dama") is a 1960 film adaptation of the opera "The Queen of Spades", based on the Aleksandr Pushkin short story of the same name.  The film, set in the 1820s, follows a man named Hermann, who returns from army service to Moscow and is loooking for a new experience.  Soon, he learns about a woman named Liza and a Countess she lives with.  He resolves to court Liza, but has another plan in mind: trying to learn from the Countess the secrets of gambling with playing cards.  Pushkin himself tacted on a preamble that summises the film; 'One who draws the Queen of Spades inherits bad luck'. Tosca (] ) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.  It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900.  The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, "La Tosca", is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's invasion of Italy.  It contains depictions of torture, murder and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias. Plácido Domingo has made hundreds of opera performances, music albums, and concert recordings throughout his career as an operatic tenor.  From his first operatic leading role as Alfredo in "La traviata" in 1961, his major debuts continued in swift succession: "Tosca" at the Hamburg State Opera and "Don Carlos" at the Vienna State Opera in 1967; "Adriana Lecouvreur" at the Metropolitan Opera, "Turandot" in Verona Arena and "La bohème" in San Francisco in 1969; "La Gioconda" in 1970; "Tosca" in Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1971; "La bohème" at the Bavarian State Opera in 1972; "Il trovatore" at the Paris Opéra in 1973 and "Don Carlo" at the Salzburg Festival in 1975, "Parsifal" in 1992 at the Bayreuth Festival; and the list continues until today; the same role is often recorded more than once. Mary, Queen of Scots is an opera in three acts composed by Thea Musgrave.  Musgrave also wrote the libretto based on Amalia Elguera's play "Moray".  It focuses on events in the life of Mary, Queen of Scots, from her return to Scotland in 1561 until 1568 when she was forced to flee to England.  The opera premiered on 6 September 1977 at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh performed by Scottish Opera.  It has subsequently had multiple performances in the UK, US, and Germany. The Queen of Spades, Op. 68 (Russian: Пиковая дама , "Pikovaya dama", French: La Dame de Pique ) is an opera in 3 acts (7 scenes) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on a short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, but the plot was dramatically altered.  The premiere took place in 1890 in St. Petersburg (at the Mariinsky Theatre), Russia. Il burbero di buon cuore ("The Good-Hearted Curmudgeon") is an opera dramma giocoso in two acts by Vicente Martín y Soler.  The Italian libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte is based on the French comedy "Le bourru bienfaisant" by Carlo Goldoni.  The opera premiered on January 4, 1786 in Vienna at the Burgtheater with a cast that included three well known Viennese singers of the day: Nancy Storace as Angelica, Francesco Benucci as Ferramondo, and Maria Mandini as Marina.  The opera premiered in the same year and at the same house as Mozart's "Le nozze di Figaro", and both operas enjoyed revivals at the Burgtheater three years later — each boasting two new arias for new leading ladies.  The new arias for "Il burbero di buon cuore" (""Chi sa, chi sa, qual sia"" K. 582 in Act I and ""Vado, ma dove?""  K. 583 in Act II, both for Lucilla) were actually composed by Mozart, as Martín y Soler had left Vienna to work at the court of Catherine the Great in St. Petersburg.  The opera recently received its first modern revival in 2007 at the Teatro Real in Madrid, a performance which was videotaped live and released on DVD in 2009. Vladimir Galouzine (Russian: Владимир Галузин , "Vladimir Galuzin", ] ) is a Russian tenor.  He has performed in such Russian operas as "The Queen of Spades", "Boris Godunov" and "Khovanshchina" and has performed the lead roles in Italian operas like "Madama Butterfly", "Otello", "Tosca", "Aida", and "Manon Lescaut". Mark Delavan is an American operatic bass-baritone.  He made his professional debut in 1986 at the San Francisco Opera in a small role in Giuseppe Verdi's "Don Carlos".  He spent the next three years performing in numerous comprimario roles with the company.  He has since returned to that opera house to sing Scarpia in Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca" (2004, with Carol Vaness in the title role) and Wotan in Richard Wagner's "The Ring Cycle" (2008, 2010, and 2011).  In 2001 he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Amonasro in Verdi's "Aida" with Deborah Voigt in the title role, Luciano Pavarotti as Radamès, Olga Borodina as Amneris, and James Levine conducting.  He has since been heard at the Met as Alfio in Pietro Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana", Carlo Gérard in "Andrea Chénier", Count Tomsky in "The Queen of Spades", Don Carlo in Verdi's "La Forza del Destino", the Messenger in Richard Strauss' "Die Frau ohne Schatten", Scarpia, and the title roles in Verdi's "Nabucco", Verdi's "Rigoletto", and Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra".
Answer: The Queen of Spades