The snow maiden
La fille de neige

"Dmitri Tcherniakov follows up his rather uninspiring 2016 production of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta/The Nutcracker with this almost successful staging of The Snow Maiden. Tcherniakov has provided an extremely well thought out attempt to update the action to a modern day audience ... The cast is an impressively strong one ... The petite soprano Aida Garifullina seems to have been born to sing the Snow Maiden and here we have her at the zenith of her career, displaying gorgeous crystalline tone for all of her scenes. This is combined with her touching acting of the lonely remote Snow Maiden ... Mikhail Tatarnikov proves to be a sympathetic conductor for this difficult piece, which can easily be killed with too much kindness. His reading finds a nice balance between expansiveness and urgency in his tempi".

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"Rimsky-Korsakov's The Snow Maiden (Snegurochka) of 1882 was the second opera I fell in love with ... it's full of wonderfully memorable melodies, many of them derived from folk tunes, and possesses an extraordinary folkloric intensity ... The title role is superbly taken by Aida Garifullina ... In summary, I would say that anyone simply wanting to enjoy Rimsky-Korsakov's superb score, a perfectly understandable wish, should stick with one of the classic audio recordings. But for those who are seriously interested in The Snow Maiden as a stage work, and undoubted imaginative and directorial challenge, this new video release will be an essential purchase".

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"Editor's choice: I would never pass up the chance to see a Dmitri Tcherniakov production. Highly controversial he may be, but his innovations follow a thoroughly musical logic and his theatrical shocks enable us to hear familiar scores as if they were freshly composed. 'The Snow Maiden' at the Paris Opéra is no exception, and it is a showcase for his art ... Tcherniakov relocates it in today's Russia ... Over the course of this 45-minute Prologue, we begin to appreciate the brilliance of the casting ... The Snow Maiden waits in silence; but when finally she opens her mouth, she commands all our attention, for this is Aida Garifullina with striking good looks and committed acting. But on top of this is a honeyed voice and a beatiful sense of line that fully absorbs all her breathtaking high notes ... This faded Rimsky-Korsakov gem regains all its sparkle here: it has been researched, staged, sung and filmed with true love and commitment".

"Schneemädchen ... einer in Russland jedem Kind bekannten Folklorefigur, die als Tochter von Väterchen Frost und Frau Frühling jedes Jahr schmilzt und nur wiederkehrt, wenn sie eine ehrliche Liebe gefunden hat ... Mikhail Tatarnikov mit feinem Klangpinsel lasiert und aquarelliert, das hervorragende Orchester zart zerfliessende Tonflächen oszillieren lässt. Frau Frühling ist die voluminös orgelnde Elena Manistina, ihr Väterchen Frost der profunde Vladimir Ognovenko. Und ihr Kind ist die hinreissende Aida Garifullina, ganz rosa Unschuld in weisser Schwanenflaummütze. Sie singt auch so, leicht, lyrisch, fast nicht von dieser Welt, mit einem stupend silberfeinen Timbre".