“Britain’s Royal Opera House will stage a rarely performed Tchaikovsky opera over the Christmas period which director Francesca Zambello called the Russian composer’s ‘best kept secret’.”  [Reuters]

The unintenional comedy gold continues after the jump. 

The Tsarina’s Slippers tells the story of the blacksmith Vakula, son of the witch Solokha, who attempts to woo the beautiful but fickle Oxana.

She will only marry him if he brings her the Tsarina’s own slippers from the court of Catherine the Great, and so Vakula enlists the help of the Devil to gatecrash a ball in St. Petesburg and bring his beloved what she desires.

Zambello said the production was part of her drive to bring opera, often seen as an elite art form, to a wider audience.