Snow blindness

Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden has not received a professional staging in the UK for 60 years. Think about that for a moment, and what it says about British operatic priorities. Sixty years of Massenet and early Verdi, of Manon Lescaut and Donizetti ‘rediscoveries’. Not that those aren’t worth having, as part of a healthy and balanced operatic diet. But the fact that during those six decades no major company showed any curiosity about an acknowledged masterpiece by one of the 19th century’s most prolific and original musical dramatists is perverse, to say the least. The musicologist Richard Taruskin, who’s nobody’s idea of a soft touch, points out that in addition to his own 16 operas Rimsky-Korsakov was also largely responsible for establishing operas by Glinka, Borodin and Mussorgsky in the repertoire. Rimsky, he concludes, is ‘perhaps the most underrated composer of all time’. I’ll buy that.