An interview with the Snow Maiden: I chat to Ffion Edwards about taking on the title role in Rimsky Korsakov’s opera with English Touring Opera

Rimsky Korsakov: The Snowmaiden – rehearsals – English Touring Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Rimsky Korsakov wrote some fifteen operas across his career yet if you discount performances by visiting companies, the number of his operas performed in the UK remains alarmingly low and each time one comes along it is something of an event. Having performed Rimsky Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel in 2022 [see my review], English Touring Opera (ETO) is returning to Rimsky Korsakov and presenting The Snow Maiden as part of its Autumn 2024 tour. The work is being directed by Olivia Fuchs and will be conducted by Hannah Quinn with a cast including Ffion Edwards, Hannah Sandison, Edward Hawkins, Joseph Doody and Kitty Whately. 

The production opens at the Hackney Empire on 28 September 2024 and tours to Snape Maltings, Saffron Hall, Buxton Opera House, The Hawth in Crawley, Northcott Theatre in Exeter and The Lighthouse, Poole, [further details] as part of an Autumn season that also includes Judith Weir’s Blond Eckbert [see my recent interview with Aoife Miskelly who sings Bird in that production]. In a break from rehearsals, I recently chatted to Ffion Edwards, a former Young Artist at National Opera Studio, about performing the title role in The Snow Maiden.

Rimsky Korsakov’s opera The Snow Maiden, which premiered in St Petersburg in 1882, remained the composer’s own favourite work. Based on a play by Alexander Ostrovsky (to which Tchaikovsky wrote incidental music in 1873), the story deals with the opposition of the eternal forces of nature. It involves the interactions of mythological characters and real people, centred on the Snow Maiden who is the child of Spring Beauty and Grandfather Frost. 

The opera does not get many outings in the UK, I saw the Chelsea
Opera Group performing it in 1986 and the Kirov Opera performed the work
in concert at Covent Garden in 2000, more recently University College
Opera presented it in 2014, then Opera North staged it in 2017 in a
production directed by John Fulljames [see my review], incidentally with Aoife Miskelly in the title role.

When I chatted with Ffion recently, she was in the midst of rehearsals for the production; she was busy as her character is on stage for a lot of the time.

Before being asked to sing the role, Ffion had not heard the opera though she was familiar with the Snow Maiden’s main aria, which she took along to auditions. In fact, this is her first experience of singing in one of Rimsky Korsakov’s operas. A lot of the music in the opera is inspired by folk music, but each character has a different style. Ffion’s music is not so folk-inspired in this and she describes her arias as more luscious, often slower and beautiful.

Whilst one of Ffion’s first jobs out of college was to cover Oriana in ETO’s production of Handel’s Amadigi in 2021 [see my review of the production], but this will be the first time she has sung with the company. She also admits that she has not done a great deal of travelling for her career, so far. Whilst in the Glyndebourne Chorus she toured with the company but that was largely a week at a time. The Snow Maiden has nine performances across seven venues over seven weeks and Ffion is looking forward to it.

Rimsky Korsakov: The Snowmaiden – Jack Dolan, Ffion Edwards, Amy J Payne in rehearsal – English Touring Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

She describes working at ETO has a happy and positive environment, and she is finding the cast one of the most relaxed that she has worked with, all are colleagues with everyone working on the same level. She adds that director Olivia Fuchs is great to work with, creating a pleasant atmosphere. Ffion comments that Olivia Fuchs has clear ideas of what she wants yet is open to discussion, creating a really good balance. The production, which is designed by Eleanor Bull, is more abstract suggesting issues about the environment and bringing out the earthiness of the work

Early this Summer, Ffion made her debut with Grange Park Opera, singing the role of Miranda in the world premiere of Anthony Bolton’s Shakespeare-inspired opera, Island of Dreams. This meant that Ffion got to work with director David Pountney, whom she also describes as having clear ideas. Yet Pountney also got his singers to improvise, using this as a starting point for the production. Ffion had not done much contemporary music before and found it a good challenge. Learning the music took time, as the notes gradually came to make sense, and it helped that there was a great cast working alongside her including Brett Polegato, Hugh Cutting, William Dazely, Luis Gomes and Andreas Jankowitsch.

For the 2021/2022 season, Ffion was a Young Artist at the National Opera Studio (NOS), which was great, a positive experience and she had a nice year group (which included Jolyon Loy, and Logan Lopez Gonzalez). She found the coachings offered by NOS to be very helpful, as they help you figure out what repertoire you want to sing. Also, the various residences meant that they got to work as a company, with major directors and conductors but in a safe space where it was possible to make mistakes. As a company, they sang such things as the ensemble from Verdi’s Falstaff [see my review of the Cadogan Hall performance of this programme]. Glyndebourne Opera came along to one of the performances and asked her to cover the role of Oberto in Handel’s Alcina in 2022 [see my review of the production] and she ended up going on twice, thus making her Glyndebourne debut.

Her voice sits high and one role that she admits to having her sights on is Zerbinetta in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos. She covered Cunegonde for Welsh National Opera in 2023 in Bernstein’s Candide and she went on once. She enjoys the role because it shows off the higher part of her voice, and also in 2023 she covered the Queen of the Night for WNO too.

She comes from Wales. Going to Welsh-speaking schools, she was encouraged to sing and take part in Eisteddfods, eventually, she started singing lessons at the age of around 14 when her teacher encouraged her to sing more classical repertoire and this led to auditioning for music college, and she studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and then at the Royal College of Music.

Looking ahead, she will be back at Glyndebourne in early 2025 for their latest community project, the premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Uprising, a new piece that looks at climate change through the eyes of the young heroine, Lola, played by Ffion. She describes Lola as advocating for awareness of climate change and that she gets people to realise the real importance. The production features professional soloists with a community chorus made up of over 100 people from across Sussex, ranging in age from 14-77, the younger participants being members of Glyndebourne Youth Opera, and the orchestra is made up of Glyndebourne Sinfonia alongside players from its Jerwood Pit Perfect programme for young Instrumentalists and young players from Brighton & East Sussex Youth Orchestra.

Then Ffion will be back at Glyndebourne for the main 2025 season when she is covering Nanetta in Verdi’s Falstaff, a role that she is really looking forward to. Working at Glyndebourne was Ffion’s first role after the National Opera Studio and it definitely feels like a family now. She lives nearby and when she toured with them in the chorus, they spent so much time together. This means that she is looking forward to working there again in 2025.

Background note: My first Rimsky Korsakov opera was The Golden Cockerel in David Pountney’s memorable production for Scottish Opera in 1983. Pountney would go on to direct Christmas Eve at English National Opera in 1988, and he  returned to Rimsky Korsakov with Ivan the Terrible (The Maid of Pskov) at Grange Park Opera in 2021 [see my review].

The only Rimsky Korsakov opera which the Royal Opera has produced is The Golden Cockerel which received a rather disappointing production at Sadler’s Wells in 1998. The other Rimsky Korsakov performances at the Royal Opera House have been by visiting Russian companies. The Edinburgh Festival has done well, over the years, with performances of Rimsky Korskov’s operas by visiting companies.

In addition to the performances of The Snow Maiden mentioned above, the Buxton Festival presented Kashchei the Immortal in 2012 [see my review], The Royal Academy of Music presented May Night at Ambika P3 in 2016 [see my review], whilst Chelsea Opera Group presented Christmas Eve in 2017 [see my review].