Rusalka
Lyrical fairytale in three acts by Antonín Dvořák
Libretto by Jaroslav Kvapil
German text by Bettina Bartz and Werner Hintze
3 hours
- Der Prinz ... Jeffrey Dowd, Timothy Richards
- Fremde Fürstin ... Ursula Hesse von den Steinen, Barbara Schneider-Hofstetter
- Rusalka ... Asmik Grigorian, Ina Kringelborn
- Der Wassermann ... Dimitry Ivashchenko, Jens Larsen
- Ježibaba ... Agnes Zwierko
- Wildhüter ... Peter Renz, Thomas Scheler
- Der Küchenjunge ... Christiane Oertel, Elisabeth Starzinger
- Erste Elfe ... Julia Giebel, Ariana Strahl, Mirka Wagner
- Zweite Elfe ... Maria Hilmes, Annelie Sophie Müller, Elisabeth Starzinger
- Dritte Elfe ... Silvia Hauer, Caren van Oijen
- Ein Jäger ... Matthias Siddhartha Otto
- Ježibabas Sohn ... Michel Podwojski
All manner of things have been ascribed to the seductive ladies of the water, the dangerously erotic nymphs and undines. For centuries, humans were haunted by their fear of these immortal creatures, and by their desire for their extraordinary beauty.
Rusalka, the nymph in Dvořák's most famous opera, wants to become human, because only with a human soul and a human form can she win the love of the prince who comes so often to bathe in her lake. Even though the witch imposes one severe condition for Rusalka's transformation into a human – namely the loss of her voice –, the nymph is still prepared to accept anything in order to gain that yearned-for other life, including even the danger of being damned for all eternity if her lover should prove unfaithful. Enthralled by the beautiful, silent creature, the prince takes Rusalka home with him. But unlike in her dreams, people greet her with hostility, alienated by the »kalte Ungeheuer« (»cold monstrosity«). When the prince falls for a foreign princess, Rusalka flees, betrayed and doomed. Only by killing the prince can she return to her old life. She encounters him for the last time in the form of a will-o'-the-wisp.
For Dvořák's later theatrical piece, which is more of a symbolic musical drama than it is a fairytale opera, his librettist delved into the rich literary collection of 19th-century nymph mythology. The external events of the plot are only the result of internal processes, which the composer describes in richly sorrowful and surreally glimmering sound. Composed on the threshold of modernity, Dvořák's music is a last glow of late-romantic colours.
Everything I have is yours to take, but of me a human make.
Rusalka in Act 1