29.11.2025

LAURA AIKIN at the Bavarian State Opera

After her appearances in recent seasons as a lead role in Shostakovich’s opera The Nose, based on Gogol’s belovedly absurd tale, soprano Laura Aikin now turns her hand once more effortlessly to a lesser known work of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Christmas Eve.

The composer skilfully combines elements of Slavic fairytales and folklore, satirical village comedies and surreal dream worlds with one another, and thus contrasts the Christian Christmas traditions with pagan figures and rituals. In doing so he ties in Christmas with the cycle of the solar year and creates a world in which the Ukrainian Koliada singing (similar to the Christian tradition of carol singing), church bells, devils, witches, nature deities and the battle between bright and dark spirits during the winter solstice, the “birth of the sun”, exist alongside one another.

Once more an adventure into the surreal world of Gogol, and with it another piece of the Russian repertoire, Laura Aikin demonstrates once more her ability to convincingly blend into an almost fully Russian-speaking cast with ease.

We send her a huge Toi toi toi for the upcoming premiere on Saturday 29 November!

Cast:

Violeta Urmana, The Tsarina
Sergei Leiferkus, The Village Headman
Dmitry Ulyanov, Chub
Elena Tsallagova, Oksana
Ekaterina Semenchuk, Solocha
Sergey Skorokhodov, Wakula
Milan Siljanov, Panas
Vsevolod Grivnov, Deacon Ossip Nikiforovich
Matti Turunen, Pazjuk
Tansel Akzeybek, The Devil
Alexandra Durseneva, A woman with a violet-blue nose
Laura Aikin, A Woman with an Ordinary Nose

Vladimir Jurowski, musical direction
Barrie Kosky, production
Klaus Grünberg, stage and lighting
Klaus Bruns, costumes
Otto Pichler, choreography
Christoph Heil, chorus
Saskia Kruse, dramaturgy

Bavarian State Orchestra
Bavarian State Opera Chorus