Let us be merry and bright: Christof Loy‘s fantastic rediscovery of Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Christmas Eve’ is back on the programme at the Frankfurt Opera.
Christianity has settled well the birth of Christ coinciding with the winter solstice, a complicated calculation based on the date of the death of the historical Jesus. Knecht Ruprecht drove away the evil spirits, and the Christ Child was the bringer of light for the lengthening days. The old demons are still present in many customs, especially in Russian fairy tales, where the devil himself is still up to mischief on Christmas Eve, although in the end he is always the victim. After all, going to hell with the All Evil One was never a prospect worth striving for, even if you did ask him for a temporary worldly advantage.
Just like the good blacksmith Vokula in Gogol’s fairy tale of the ‘Christmas Eve’, which Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov adapted into a fantastic opera. In keeping with the Ukrainian-born poet’s fable, he uses old Ukrainian folk songs and turns the popular story into a piece of cosmology with some spherical harmony and choral anthems. There is even a ballet, in which the stars dance in the sky and the birth of Christ is associated with the erotic union of the pagan spring god Owsen and the virgin goddess Koljada, who thus becomes a secular version of the virgin mother of God Mary. It is beautiful how the desexualised symbolism of Christ and the hearty spring eroticism complement each other to create a physical and spiritual new beginning.
Christof Loy has turned this into an intelligent folk play with a cosmological superstructure at the Frankfurt Opera, which has now celebrated its revival with a sold-out house. The fact that Johannes Leiacker presents the stage as a starry sky in negative, i.e. white with a dark shining moon and stars, literally contributes to enlightenment. On this night before Christmas, we can see everything that usually happens in the dark. For example, the strange old Solocha flies out of the house as a witch with a broom, but then receives very clearly interested visits at home: from the devil and the village honourables like the mayor, the deacon and the rich farmer Tschub. They all have to hide from each other in coal sacks, and so the devil is accidentally dragged away by Wakula.
But with the sign of the cross he is able to make him compliant immediately, and so the devil has to help him obtain slippers from the Tsarina, without which Tschub’s daughter Oksana will not marry him. Loy has the singers flying through the air on ropes, dancing minuets for the Tsarina in baroque costumes, while dancers perform somersaults as Cossacks and Koljada dances on pointe.
And Loy has a great sense of humour and humanising details when the Tsarina finds erotic pleasure in the sturdy blacksmith, an allusion to the nymphomaniac Catherine the Great, whom Rimsky-Korsakov also had in mind. Or when the wealthy Tschub curiously paws over Vakula’s bridal gifts. Incidentally, Oksana is seriously worried that she has lost Wakula through her coquetry with the slippers.
Monika Buczkowska-Ward sings her with a suitably lyrical, moving soprano, but could do with more volume at the end, when the role becomes more dramatic with the reflection. Georgy Vasiliev brings a suitably straightforward tenor to the role of Vakulak. All the dignitaries are also cast true to type, including Enkelejda Shkoza as Solocha and Britta Stallmeister as the wonderfully nagging neighbour.
All of them, including the Devil (Andrei Popov), are ultimately part of the village microcosm within the cosmic macrocosm as stage space. Including the dancers, who gave shape to the stars and gods, partly floating in space, partly as a shaggy bear and other demons on earth. A wonderful ensemble, carried by the choir, which thus intones Rimsky-Korsakov’s pantheistic convictions in the mightily constructed Christmas miracle of the birth of Christ and the return of the sun.
Takeshi Moriuchi performs this with the museum orchestra like a Russian Mahler 8th, and knows how to make the most of both the hymnal and the folk elements. An exemplary scenic-musical interpretation of a work that one would like to find more often in the repertoire of opera houses.