Inventive and imaginative: Olivia Fuchs’ successfully reinvents Rimsky Korsakov’s The Snowmaiden for English Touring Opera

Rimsky Korsakov: The Snowmaiden – English Touring Opera (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

Rimsky Korsakov: The Snowmaiden; Ffion Edwards, Kitty Whately Katherine McIndoe, Edmund Danon, Hannah Sandison, Joseph Doody, Jack Dolan, Amy J Payne, Edward Hawkins/Phil Wilcox, director: Olivia Fuchs, conductor Hannah Quinn; English Touring Opera at Saffron Hall
Reviewed 19 October 2024

A welcome outing for Rimsky Korsakov’s favourite opera with engaging performances from a strong ensemble cast in an inventive production

Rimsky Korsakov’s opera The Snowmaiden always remained one of his favourites but has not been on UK stages that much. We caught up with English Touring Opera‘s welcome new production in Saffron Hall on Saturday 19 October 2024. The production was directed by Olivia Fuchs and conducted by Hannah Quinn with designs by Eleanor Bull and was sung in Alistair Middleton’s English translation.

Ffion Edwards was the Snowmaiden (though referred to as Snow Princess in Middleton’s text), with Kitty Whately as Lel, Katherine McIndoe as Kupava, Edmund Danon as Mizgir, Hannah Sandison as Spring Beauty, Joseph Doody as the Tsar, Jack Dolan as Bobyl, Amy J Payne as Boblikha, David Horton as spirit of the wood, Neil Balfour as Maslenitsa and Alexandre Meier as the Tsar’s Page. Edward Hawkins was unable to sing and walked the roles of Grandfather Frost and Bermyata whilst Phil Wilcox the ensemble sang, whilst also doing his ensemble duties and playing the accordion for one of Kitty Whately’s solos.

Like many of Rimsky Korsakov’s operas, The Snowmaiden is quite discursive with focus shifting between characters. It is also long, the fullest version on record lasting around three and a half hours of music. Here, trimmed to around 2 hours 40 minutes of music, the result did full justice to Rimsky Korsakov’s discursive mix of solos, choruses and dances, whilst ensuring a pace that kept the attention of an audience unfamiliar with the work.

Rimsky Korsakov: The Snowmaiden  – Hannah Sandison, Ffion Edwards – English Touring Opera (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

Alistair Middleton’s rhyming English version was a complete delight and under Hannah Quinn’s expert direction the orchestra made the orchestral reduction seem richly expansive. This was a production that successfully reinvented a work premiered by the lavish forces of the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg without losing ita essence.

The story is akin to Dvorak’s Rusalka, a young woman discovering her sexuality (love in the opera’s parlance). Like Rusalka, the heroine here is at one remove from the society in the opera; Rimsky Korsakov surrounds the Snowmaiden with the vibrant spring rituals of primitive Russ society. In the original, there are links too, to The Rite of Spring by Rimsky Korsakov’s pupil, Stravinsky. Both works involve a maiden being sacrificed to bring the Summer. But here, Olivia Fuchs adjusted things somewhat and the Snowmaiden was transfigured rather than melting away. Also, Fuchs added a neat bit of subversion. When Ffion Edwards’ Snowmaiden and Edmund Danon’s Mizgir discover love at the end, this is via a pair of rose-tinted spectacles.

Ffion Edwards made an engagingly demure Snowmaiden, singing her solos with pure beauty and making the character’s lack of understanding of love more an appealing naivety than anything cooler.  Throughout, Edwards kept our attention and drew sympathy for the character. There was an engaging quality to her attempts at interacting with the young people, all vibrantly engaged in a search for intimate relationships, whilst her solo moments combined great beauty with a lovely sense of yearning.

Kitty Whately as Lel was characterful in spades, a young man full of songs and eager to discover love. Lel’s songs punctuated the narrative rather than driving it forward but Whately was never less than mesmerising, each song engaged in a different way and this Lel clearly delighted in singing to us. Katherine McIndoe made Kupava rather touching. The character pulls focus in the first half of the opera as Danon’s Mizgir rejects her in favour of the Snowmaiden, and McIndoe sang with great sympathy. Danon made Mizgir into a believable character, mixing his moments of anger with real tenderness, so that by the end we had real sympathy for him.

Hannah Sanderson was a wonderfully glamorous Spring Beauty, the epitome of the society mother who parks her child with a nanny or a nurese. Joseph Doody was the Tsar, a benevolent figure got up rather like a South American icon with a halo-like tiara and a magnificent dress which, not co-incidentally was exactly the same colour as Hannah Sanderson’s gown. Doody brought a nice ease and lovely tone to the sometimes high lying role.

Jack Dolan and Amy J Payne had great fun as the couple tasked with caring for Edwards’ Snowmaiden. Neil Balfour, David Horton and Alexandra Meier gave strong support in smaller roles. A big shout out for the hard working chorus, singing and dancing, filling the stage with colour and movement. 

Rimsky Korsakov: The Snowmaiden  – English Touring Opera (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

This wasn’t a lavish production by any means, but Bull’s designs were inventive and imaginative. She and Fuchs successfully reincarnated Rimsky Korsakov’s opera in a way that was enjoyable and thought-provoking. A fine ensemble cast were never less than engaging, filling out the stage with a will, supported by Hannah Quinn and the orchestra.