The world premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov’s summery May Night was a freezing January evening in St Petersburg, so who could complain if Garsington served up a damp night in June? What matters most in this undervalued and enchanting piece is atmosphere, and there’s plenty of that in this charming production.
A certain amount of the colourful plot, drawn from a Gogol short story, does have to be taken on faith. Think of Smetana’s fairytale Rusalka crossed with his social comedy The Bartered Bride and you end up with May Night, where the young lovers Levko and Hanna conspire against their pompous elders, and seductive water-maidens lend a helping hand — albeit only after the bewitched Levko has correctly identified the evil witch in their midst.
But guiding us through this strange mixture of fantasy and farce is Rimsky-Korsakov’s delectable score, and it shimmers and flickers perfectly for the conductor Elgar Howarth, who clearly relishes the Russian composer’s happy nods to the German Romantics. Horns call over elfin strings; the high jinks on stage are sharpened and honed by the composer’s determination to take them seriously. We quiver as much during Levko’s fateful description of the terrifying water-maidens as we do when the village’s jovial distiller (a winningly inebriated Stuart Kale) is relating a shaggy-dog story about his mother-in-law’s dumplings.
Olivia Fuchs’s sensitive production does the job, even if it occasionally leaves the chief protagonists marooned in Jamie Vartan’s spartan, Chagall-inspired sets. The occasional spot of ropey choreography for our unhappy water sprites mars their striking first appearance: pinned to the wall like butterflies, writhing in undead torment.
But Fuchs draws sharp performances from the principals, led by Peter Wedd’s Levko. Wedd would be hard-pressed to use his lyric tenor on this role in a larger house, but here he breathed vibrant ardour into his languid arias, and was well matched by the dusky mezzo of Antonia Sotgiu as his intended. And you’d have to be very stony-hearted to resist the finale, when the villagers enter from the Garsington flower garden with Chinese lanterns to toast the triumph of young love. Plenty of sunshine here, whatever the weather.
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