Reading a director’s rationale before watching their take on a classic can blunt the freshness of one’s responses. But there are times when some preliminary swotting is essential, and so it is with the Rusalka of co-directors Natalie Abrahami and Ann Yee, whose Royal Opera House production engages provocatively with Dvorak’s plot.
That plot is a variant on a standard fairytale trope. A water spirit falls in love with a prince, and, with the help of a witch, becomes human in order to marry him. But the pair can only stay together so long as she stays dumb, and he stays faithful.
