The Tsarina's Slippers is well-shod but shoddy

Perhaps only pedants and shoe fetishists will quibble at the billing — though the dainty court footwear on display has a crucial role to play. More ­seriously, this feeble, unimaginative production is a disappointing pitch for the festive market (catch it on BBC2 over Christmas) that’s unlikely to win converts to opera.

Coquettish: Olga Guryakova takes centre stage as Oxana

In Act 1 the widow Solokha’s loneliness is enlivened by a flirtation with the Devil and they dance a hopak. In Act 2 they get into the mood with, yes, another hopak. This time they’re
interrupted. The Devil hides and before long Solokha has no fewer than four admirers trussed up in sacks.

Meanwhile, Solokha’s son, Vakula, is vainly wooing the village coquette, Oxana, but Zambello’s handling of these conventional situations is as uninspiring as Tchaikovsky’s music for the first two acts.

Opting, with designers Mikhail Mokrov (sets) and Tatiana Noginova (costumes), for a "naïve folkloric style" with old-fashioned painted drops, she offers neither a contemporary gloss nor even the virtuoso stagecraft that might have made a success of the folksy fantasy in its own terms.

After the interval we’re presented with gently abstractionist, even postmodernist touches (courtiers dancing in front of a model of a palace, tiaras incorporating similar regal edifices). There’s no obvious reason for the change of mode but one can only be grateful, especially as Tchaikovsky’s music is also superior and often ravishingly scored here — a fact seized on gratefully by conductor Alexander Polianichko.

The singing, by a largely Russian cast, is not particularly distinguished — apart from Sergei Leiferkus as His Highness — though there are intermittently decent contributions from Olga Guryakova (Oxana), Vladimir Matorin (Chub) and Larissa Diadkova (Solokha).

Is a "naïve folkloric style" really tenable today? Zambello seems to have decided not but only halfway through her show. There may be little magic but there’s colour in abundance, and some fine dancing from the Royal Ballet. That includes Cossack dancing for those who like that sort of thing. But if they break into another hopak I’ll scream.

Until 8 December. Information: 020 7304 4000; www.roh.org.uk. BBC Radio 3 on 5 December.

The Royal Opera: The Tsarina's Slippers
Royal Opera House
Floral Street, WC2E 9DD