Organization

Conductor

Sebastian Weigle

Stage director

Christof Loy

Set designer

Johannes Leiacker

Costume designer

Ursula Renzenbrink

Lighting designer

Olaf Winter

Chorus master

Tilman Michael

Video designer

Myriam Hoyer

Singer

Mezzo-soprano

Bianca Andrew

Tsarina

Bass

Alexey Tikhomirov

Chub

Soprano

Julia Muzychenko

Oksana

Enkelejda Shkoza

Solokha

Woman with a violet nose

Tenor

Georgy Vasiliev

Vakula the blacksmith

Bass-baritone

Anthony Robin Schneider

Panas

Peter Marsh

Deacon

Baritone

Sebastian Geyer

Head of the Village

Thomas Faulkner

Patsyuk

Andrei Popov

Devil

Barbara Zechmeister

Woman with an ordinary nose

Oper Frankfurt

Orchestra

Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester

Others

Choir of the Frankfurt Opera

руски

The Night before Christmass

Frankfurt am Main

Germany

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Christmas Eve is a satirical-realistic depiction of Ukrainian village life combined with fantastic and mythological elements. It is a feast of villagers' Christmas songs, lyrical arias, buffo scenes and dance numbers set to orchestral interludes. The relationship between man and nature, between the individual and the cosmos is at the centre of the opera. Rimsky-Korsakov himself wrote the libretto based on Gogol's story of the same name. As an avowed pantheist, the composer saw nature as an image of the divine - and thus as something absolutely worth preserving. He added mythological elements of pagan folk belief; he has stars dancing in the sky and the apparition of human-looking sun gods. The composer shows the meaningfulness and beauty of a cosmos in whose biological and seasonal rhythms human beings are suspended - in this production quite literally. Directed by Christof Loy and conducted by Sebastian Weigle, this rendition of Christmas Eve won OpernWelt’s Production of the Year 2021/22.

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