Treat yourself to an enchanting operatic rarity for Christmas. Tchaikovsky’s colourful score offers one irresistible melody after another. Staged by Francesca Zambello, who directed The Royal Opera’s The Queen of Spades and The Bartered Bride, this Russian fairy tale is definitely something to look forward to.

Many of Tchaikovsky’s stage works are unjustly neglected outside Russia. Now one of the most charming of all, Cherevichki (The Tsarina’s Slippers), comes to Covent Garden for the first time, under the baton of Alexander Polianichko and with an almost entirely Russian cast. Based on a Christmas tale by Gogol that mixes realistic village comedy with fairytale fantasy, the plot describes how Vakula the blacksmith flies on the Devil’s back to St Petersburg to request a pair of little leather slippers worn by the Tsarina herself in order to win the hand of his beloved Oxana.

The opera according to the composer himself was well-nigh perfect musically. Judge for yourselves with this new production by Francesca Zambello, choreographed by The Royal Ballet’s Alastair Marriott and led by Olga Guryakova, who shares the role of Oxana with Viktoria Yastrebova, with Vsevolod Grivnov as Vakula, Larissa Diadkova as his mother, the witch Solokha, and Maxim Mikhailov as The Devil.

Dates
Opened: 20th November 2009
Closes: 8th December 2009

Run Time: Three hours | 1 Intervals

Sung in Russian with English subtitles