Dvorak’s Rusalka is a mellifluous but powerful presentation of a familiar 19th-century trope: the incompatibility of humans and the denizens of the immortal spirit world. It’s a theme treated in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Undine, Wagner’s Die Feen and Lohengrin, and in satirical form in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe.
In their new production for the Royal Opera, Ann Yee and Natalie Abrahami give it a slight twist to reframe it as the despoliation of nature (rather than the supernatural) by humanity. The scenography of the first act features a quasi-naturalistic forest with lush vegetation. No lunar body was visible, from my seat at least, for Rusalka’s celebrated Song to the Moon (eloquently sung by Asmik Grigorian); imaginatively the rays of moonlight are filtered instead through a circular opening high above her.
The visual aesthetic of Chloe Lamford’s sets is clearly not as old-school as at first appeared, yet the dramaturgy sadly is: too little character interaction and insufficient dynamism at points of tension.
In the Prince’s palace in Act II, the vegetation is framed in a white cuboid structure, the torn roots of a tree polished by servants into an ornament, the trunk fashioned into furniture. That the violation of nature leads to the corruption of humanity is suggested by the gothic-inspired get-up and decadent bling of the wedding guests. Here the stiff poses of Grigorian forcefully express the mute sorrow of the Prince’s bride, Rusalka, uprooted from her element and deprived of her voice.
By Act III, the circular opening has come to resemble the underside of a huge marble toilet seat, aptly perhaps suspended over the polluted lake below. The wood spirits, now rust-haired, cavort diabolically, and the stage is set for the heartbreaking final scene in which the Prince, asking for forgiveness, begs to be kissed by Rusalka, even though he knows it will cause his death. As she grieves over her dead lover, an aerial artist movingly represents her liberated spirit, or perhaps the soul immortals are not supposed to have.
For this scene what’s needed are a soprano and a tenor with gleaming tone and Wagnerian staying-power. In Grigorian and David Butt Philip we had that in spades. And indeed they headed a superb cast with no weak links. In a subtle reframing of some characters, Jezibaba, formerly known as a witch, becomes a “wise, eternal spirit”; her dignity suggested in Sarah Connolly’s restrained interpretation.
Rusalka’s father, traditionally described, by those who don’t know better, as a water gnome, becomes a more respectable “immortal water spirit”, sung admirably by Aleksei Isaev. Emma Bell was a formidable Foreign Princess (or “Duchess, the Prince’s political equal”, as she is called here). Hongni Wu and Ross Ramgobin were also excellent as Kuchtík and Hajny.
On the podium Semyon Bychkov was equally responsive to the folksy lilt and expansive lyricism in this glorious score. Annemarie Woods supplied striking costumes and Paule Constable evocative lighting to complete the five-woman team responsible for this remarkable feminist-orientated and incidentally ecologically sustainable production.
