There have been several recordings of an opera which has never really entered the repertory but which Tchaikovsky held in special affection. The first, made as long ago as 1948 and roughly recorded, but still available, was a stalwart Bolshoi performance under Alexander Melik-Pashayev, a fine conductor with a care both for tradition and for his artists. They included the elegant Georgi Nelepp as Vakula; Elena Kruglikova was a strident Oxana. Vladimir Fedoseyev’s 1974 recording was somewhat in this vein, given to traditional portrayals of well-tried vocal types rather than concerning itself with subtleties of character; it also made a number of cuts so that the performance could later be accommodated on two CDs.

More recently, there have been Western performances of this comic fantasy about a spoilt girl compelling her suitor to fly off to St Petersburg so as to obtain the Tsaritsa’s smart, high-heeled boots, the ‘cherevichki’ of the title. The Cagliari Teatro Lirico managed to secure Gennady Rozhdestvensky to conduct its production in 2000 with a largely Russian cast, and was well rewarded. Though the recording suffers from what sound like radio microphones for the soloists, so that however much they move about they seem permanently rooted to the spot, there is a vivid account of Tchaikovsky’s colourful orchestration. So there is in the new Garsington version, conducted with a lively impetus and an idiomatic feel for the work by Elgar Howarth. Here, the recording is more fluid but is sometimes rather distant with the voices and does not allow the singers very lucid articulation of the Russian, which by and large they manage capably.

There are some effective characterisations. Anne-Sophie Duprels is closer to Rozhdestvensky’s Ekaterina Morosova in doing what she can to suggest a lyrical, touching side to the wilful Oxana’s nature rather than emphasise the shrewishness, as with Fedoseyev’s Nina Fomina. Nevertheless, she wraps poor Vakula round her little finger, though Adrian Dwyer takes his own lyrical opportunities quite appealingly. Roderick Earle hams away cheerfully as the Devil with Frances McCafferty’s fruity Solokha, who sounds earthily human even if she is a witch. Gerard O’Connor produces a good comic turn as the Mayor, Pan Golova. An authentic Ukrainian ring enters the proceedings with Leonid Zimnenko’s hefty old Cossack, Chub.

Though there is an infectious note of enjoyment in the Garsington performance, the Cagliari set is probably the preferable all-round choice for this odd but beguiling opera. It provides the full text (in Cyrillic), followed by anonymous parallel Italian and English translations; the Garsington set has a transliteration in parallel with a fluent, sensible translation by Felicity Cave.