Rusalka

Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka is a true gem of Czech opera, one that has won over audiences worldwide. Ardent melodies, both tender and dramatically extreme, the composer’s masterful work with musical motifs and full-blooded orchestration, as well as Jaroslav Kvapil’s fabulous libretto, evoking K. J. Erben’s simple yet immensely forcible ballads, make Rusalka a work of fascinating beauty addressing audiences of all ages.

Rusalka has customarily been deemed a “mere” fairy-tale. To be sure, there is no doubt that the fantastic story and the characters of the wood nymphs, the water goblin and the witch are of a fairy-tale ilk, yet in its fairy-tale scenes Dvořák’s masterpiece bears an enciphered profound message about the fundamental order of forces, elements, energies and passions in the natural, and therefore also human, world.