It’s the night before Christmas, and while the villagers of Dikanka gossip and drink vodka, the Devil is up to his tricks. The blacksmith Vakula, meanwhile, is dejected: the beautiful (but high-maintenance) Oksana has declared that she won’t marry him unless he gives her a pair of the Tsarina’s slippers for Christmas. Now take a coven of local witches and a pagan sun god, add big-hearted melody and glittering ceremonial, then wrap it all up in orchestration that sparkles with starlit enchantment, and you’ve got Rimsky-Korsakov’s 1895 opera Christmas Eve – for my money the most inexplicably neglected of all Rimsky’s (not exactly over-represented) stage works.

And not just on stage, either (the UK hasn’t seen a full-dress production since the 1980s, although the Royal Opera did stage Cherevichki, Tchaikovsky’s setting of the same Gogol short story, in 2009). Complete recordings have been scarce, too: Michail Jurowski’s 1990 Moscow recording (the only one in anything resembling modern sound) is practically a collector’s item. Why? Beats me: we’re hardly oversupplied with Christmas operas. On the rare occasions that Christmas Eve does get an outing, audiences seem to adore it, and this film of Christof Loy’s 2021 staging in Frankfurt comes garlanded with awards.

It’s easy to see why – at least once you get past the initial visual shock. Well, I say shock: Johannes Leiacker’s designs replace Dikanka with an entirely generic modernist white cube. But video projections give us snowstorms as well as the stars and comets that Rimsky-Korsakov specifies, and the Moon (stolen by the Devil early in the action) looms incongruously over one side of the stage. After some genuinely magical aerial acrobatics (and atmospheric lighting to match) it becomes clear that the heart of Loy’s production is exactly where it should be. The emphasis is on the characters, and the magic.

So costumes vary between modern and storybook Russian, standing out like illustrations against the wintry monochrome sets. The sorcerer Patsyuk is particularly eye-popping, while the Act 3 ballet becomes a pas de deux for the gods Ovsen and Kolyada – a poignant ballet blanc to remind us that from where we sit, Rimsky’s own world of late Imperial Russia might as well be a fairy tale, too. Loy masses his choral scenes with gusto, and draws the characters with compassion and wit. It’s the mixture of cheerfulness and melancholy – supernatural wonder and simple human warmth – that makes this opera sing, and Loy walks the line without compromise to his own aesthetic. The Christmas morning reunion between Vakula and Oksana is particularly touching, and the ending is as happy as you could wish.

A lot of that is down to the cast. Georgy Vasiliev is a genial, put-upon Vakula who can pack a real Slavic Heldentenor punch when necessary, and Julia Muzychenko is Oksana down to her (suitably splendid) slippers – every inch the village princess, but singing with plaintive sweetness in her tearful Act 4 aria. Andrei Popov is wickedly seedy and plausible as the Devil (his nasal character-tenor is very much in the tradition of this role), while the witch Solokha (Vakula’s mother, as it happens) is played with a mischievous air and a rich, ripe mezzo by Enkelejda Shkoza. The more comic roles (such as Alexey Tikhomirov’s Chub and Anthony Robin Schneider as Panas) are delivered with verve and full-fat bass singing.

They all come through with admirable presence on the audio release. Some will doubtless be glad to enjoy Rimsky’s ravishing score without Loy’s visuals: each to their own, but there’s no question that it fills a yawning gap in the catalogue. It’s also hugely enjoyable in its own right, throwing a particular spotlight on Sebastian Weigle’s affectionate, alert conducting. No one could mistake the Frankfurt orchestra for an old-school Russian pit band but there’s something to be said for the chance to hear the opening horn solo without mile-wide vibrato. The occasional bursts of applause are unobtrusive and the orchestra really glows, with Weigle gently bringing out Rimsky’s discreet Wagnerisms as well as his folk colours. In either format, this recording should make new friends for an opera that ought to be much more than just a Russian rarity.