The Snow Maiden (Russian: Снегурочка) is a 1952 animated adaptation of Alexander Ostrovsky's play and Nickolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera of the same name.
Tropes featured in the film:
- Adaptational Context Change: In the opera, Mizgir runs after the Snow Maiden into the woods due to being her Stalker with a Crush. Here, he runs after her to console her when she is heartbroken about Lel.
- Adaptational Dye-Job: In the play and opera, Mizgir's hair is somewhere in the range from medium blond to light brown (the word "русый" used to describe it is applied to the variety of shades between blond and brown). This adaptation makes it dark brown, to further emphasize the contrast with blond-haired Lel.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Mizgir's character underwent a lot of this to become at least a passable romantic lead for a children's movie:
- In the opera, he stalks the Snow Maiden and eventually tries to rape her. Here, it's all omitted. He gazes at her from a distance and is visibly uncomfortable when he sees her affection for Lel, but that's about it.
- In the opera, he behaved like a complete Jerkass to his ex-fiancee Kupava, not only dumping her publicly in the rudest way possible but also Slut-Shaming her afterwards. Here, he still dumps her (as it's a central plot point, it would have been impossible to avoid), but his nastiness about it is omitted too.
- Likewise, Bobyl and Bobylikha don't try to pimp out the Snow Maiden or throw Lel out of their house and are nothing but friendly comic relief characters.
- Mizgir's character underwent a lot of this to become at least a passable romantic lead for a children's movie:
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The Snow Maiden and Lel, as partly supernatural characters, wear white, and the earthly Kupava and Mizgir wear red.
- Compressed Adaptation: The film's runtime is three times less than the opera's. Obviously, the plot had to be pretty condensed to fit into the format.
- Decomposite Character: In relation to the opera, but not to the play. In the opera, only one Wood Spirit appears onstage; in the play, voices of several Wood Spirits can be heard. In this movie, there are several of them again.
- Innocent Soprano: Like in the opera proper, The Ingenue Snow Maiden is a coloratura soprano.
- Lighter and Softer, combined with Tamer and Chaster: As it's an adaptation aimed to introduce children to the opera, the majority of the dark themes and sexual subtext have been cut.
- Lonely Rich Kid: In a luxurious Ice Palace, with animals who serve her, the Snow Maiden desperately longs for human company.
- Love Dodecahedron: Although it's a lot chaster than in the opera, it's still present — the Snow Maiden likes Lel but can't feel real love until her mother grants her the ability to do so and she falls for Mizgir, Lel loves the Snow Maiden but then switches to Kupava, Mizgir leaves Kupava for the Snow Maiden, and Kupava finds Second Love with Lel.
- Wizard Beard: Frost sports a long white beard.
