The Snow Maiden

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov worked on the opera from the summer of 1880 until the spring of 1881. He wrote the libretto himself, basing the plot on A. N. Ostrovsky's play of the same name. The opera premiered on 10 February 1882 at the Mariinsky Theatre and was a great success. The composer later said: «I came away convinced that „The Snow Maiden“ is my best work».

There had already been a "Snow Maiden" in the life of our theatre: in 2004 Marina Tsykina staged A. N. Ostrovsky's fairy tale in her children's studio and asked our company to perform several numbers as musical "support" for the show. We enjoyed the performance, and the thought of performing the whole opera lodged firmly somewhere in our subconscious.

And so, after a string of musicals and the brilliant Rossini, we wanted something homespun Russian. The vocal score of "The Snow Maiden" came in handy. Sadovnikova immersed herself in it and then some kind of blindness came over her: she fell so in love with the music that she betrayed herself, finding it impossible to cut such beauty (in other projects she cut ruthlessly, fortunately the long-departed authors did not object). As a result the show turned out the longest of all ever performed by our theatre: a little over two hours of "pure" time. But... the marvellous sets by E. Litinskaya, which Vasnetsov himself would have envied, the luxurious costumes by A. Sadovnikova-Potanina, I. Neduva, and I. Gorbatova, the touching image of the Snow Maiden created by M. Nikiforova, not to mention the music of N. Rimsky-Korsakov... We think the audience did not regret the time spent in the auditorium!

And here is how we sang almost the same thing in 2004 in Marina Tsykina's children's show