Performer: Dmitri Jurowski

In a score that can be a Technicolor wallow, Jurowski’s sure sense of dramatic pulse and balance, encompassed the brash dance rhythms, religious grandeur, vivid tone painting and the extremes of dissonance.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera is rarely performed outside Russia. Sadly, I doubt that Daniel Kramer’s staging for Opera Vlaanderen will win it many new friends.

The performance bids for musical purity, but ends up stripped of story and emotion as well.