Antonín Dvořák
Jaroslav Kvapil

Lyric fairy-tale in three acts op. 114
Rusalka feels trapped in a world from which there is no escape. She is ready to put her immortality on the line in return for a human soul, so she can gain the love of a handsome prince. But she must pay for it with her voice. Muted and liberated from her dark world, she is forced to watch as the prince rejects her in favor of a foreign princess – dooming them both. She cannot live, she cannot die, yet nevertheless at the end, she helps the prince find his death with a “rescuing” kiss.

In their opera Rusalka, which premièred in 1901, Antonin Dvořák and his librettist Jaroslav Kvapil mixed the Slavic myth of the undead vengeful woman from the water with such storybook characters as Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s Undine and Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid. The fascinating musical worlds, the lyrical and highly dramatic moments came together to make Rusalka one of the most successful Czech operas ever written.

Sung in Czech with German surtitles

Casts

Conductor Tomáš Hanus   
Production Martin Kušej   
Set Martin Zehetgruber   
Costumes Heidi Hackl   
Lighting Reinhard Traub   
Chor Sören Eckhoff   
Dramaturgy Olaf A. Schmitt.   

Der Prinz Dmytro Popov   
Die fremde Fürstin Heike Grötzinger   
Rusalka Kristine Opolais   
Der Wassermann Georg Zeppenfeld   
Die Hexe Helena Zubanovich   
Der Förster Ulrich Reß   
Der Küchenjunge Yulia Sokolik   
1. Waldnymphe Eri Nakamura   
2. Waldnymphe Angela Brower   
3. Waldnymphe Okka von der Damerau   
Ein Jäger Andrea Borghini