Rusalka

Instead of a lake, the scene is set in a Victorian nursery with toys and a swing. Rusalka is not a water nymph but a girl on the brink of womanhood, whose pain and ecstasy match those in the fairytale. The story, with its elements of witchcraft, becomes her dream. It works on all levels. The singing and acting are uniformly good, and the staging is both fascinating and evocative. --Joe McLellan

First the positives: beautiful music, Wagnerian with a lyrical twist.

The negatives: first off: maybe I'm spoiled, but in this day there is no reason for an opera DVD NOT to have subtitles (I hope the double negative makes sense). The fact that it is sung in English is no excuse, especially when Rusalka or the Princess is going full-bore in some big ensemble. (Loud sopranos are more difficult to understand than loud male voices.) I understood maybe one-third of the libretto. Given the heavy reinterpretation given this staging, the listener needs all the clues he/she can have. Fortunately, the Met Opera web site had a synopsis that filled in some holes. That's one star off there.

Secondly, the production makes hash of the story. While some of the negative comments of one of my fellow reviewers seems to me to be nitpicking, the general thrust seems to be valid: there is no way to integrate the story, what you see on stage, and what you hear.

In the first place, if I hadn't read the blurb on the DVD case (one or two sentences long) outlining the Freudian interpretation, there is no way to see it in the staging. The story interprets the staging, not the other way around.

In the second place, based on this Freudian view, the ending makes no sense. Are we to believe that Rusalka should have never grown up? Or, are we to say that all men are jerks, all women are ..., and that "coming of age" sexually will transform women into demonic seductresses who will inevitably kill men? Huh????!!!

That leads to my third criticism of the staging: a fairy story only works AS A FAIRY STORY. Since Tolkien (Lord of the Rings) is all the rage right now (January 2004), let me invoke him: to allegorize a fairy tale is to kill it. One must let the mythic archetypes stand on their own, speaking their own truth, telling their own story.

The mis-staging costs another star.

Generally, we have a four star DVD here, but these errors, 4-2 = 2 stars.

P. S. In checking around on the web for more info on this work, I've learned that there is a new DVD of Rusalka with Renee Fleming in the title role. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing it is only available in UK. Hopefully we can get it soon. Wait for it.


Awful   March 30, 2003
Don Fetterman (Easton, PA United States)
I love this opera. Dvorak wrote exquisite music for this fairytale. I saw a production of it at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and thought it was wonderful: I had to have a video of it, but what a disapointment. There is no resemblance to what I think Dvorak had in mind and this awful version. I would wager that he is turning over in his grave. I can't imagine what was in the mind of the stager who so distorted this beautiful opera.


Awful   March 30, 2003
Don Fetterman (Easton, PA United States)
I love this opera. Dvorak wrote exquisite music for this fairytale. I saw a production of it at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and thought it was wonderful: I had to have a video of it, but what a disapointment. There is no resemblance to what I think Dvorak had in mind and this awful version. I would wager that he is turning over in his grave. I can't imagine what was in the mind of the stager who so distorted this beautiful opera.


Who gave this the green light?   December 17, 2002
operafan
Let me start by saying that I have never seen any performances of Rusalka besides this one. Maybe if I had seen a normal performance before this one, I might enjoy it more. I doubt it though. There are many things that just are done poorly. As said before this is an interpretive production. The interpretation does nothing but confuse me. I never know where any of the scenes are taking place. The scenery is all pretty much the same, except for certain objects on stage that are supposed to create different settings for the different scenes. Most of the scenes have very little scenerey, making this production incredibly boring, seeing a huge stage with harly anything filling it up. The first scene appears to take place in a nursery, but there is a big hole in the floor with a pond underneath. Isn't the nursery supposed to represent the life under the lake? If so why is there a lake/pond in the middle of the floor? Aren't they already "underwater." Why does Rusalka sing "Song to the Moon" with her back to the moon? In the second act, there is a glass cube witha single bed in it. I guess this is a bedroom. Whose bedroom is it? How come when the prince is supposed to straddle Rusalka and choke her it looks like he is so weak that he would be incapable of choking a small animal? Why is the glass bedroom right in the middle of the ballroom during the dance scene? Why is there a backdrop of the sky during the ballroom scene? Those are just some questions that occur to me when I watch this performance. As said before, this is an English translation of the Czech libretto, and it is pretty obvious. The text just doesn't fit well with the music at all. There are also no subtitles to help with the parts that are difficult to hear, which are many. The sound is also very shaky. There is a constant flutter throughout the performance. It is most audible when one of the woodwinds holds out a long note. The acting performances are horrible. I blame the director, though. The acting is just extremely overexaggerated in the facial expressions and movements which is a common tendency for many actors which is usually remedied by a good or even mediocre director. I think the casting for the prince was a mistake too. He looks about twice the age of Rusalka, and should have been cast as one of the hunters that accompany the prince in the first act. His mullet and ugly moustache look anything but regal. Not the kind of guy you would give up your immortality and your voice to be with, as Rusalka does. The reason this gets two stars instead of one is that Dvorak's score is magical, and contains everything that I love about his music. Unfortunately this is the only performance available on VHS or DVD. After reading previous reviews, I decided to buy this DVD anyway just because I like Dvorak's music so much, and I wanted to see how he handled operatic music. Don't make the same mistake I did.