Čury mury fuk!
I have to confess that, when it comes to folkloric water maidens, I definitely prefer the Celtic model. You don't make the rules of the romance; she does. And if you break them, there is no, "Sorry, I'll make it up to you." She is out the damn door and her kids--your kids--are right behind her. It's not out of magical obligation that these women don't talk things out; it's out of choice.
And perhaps if more women than men were writing playscripts and libretti a century or so ago, it would be their stories which would spring to mind first and not those of the Little Mermaid and her wild-eyed silent kind. At least you can't say that Kvapil, Dvořák's librettist, didn't put his own stamp on the legend. As if to prove that the Scandinavians have nothing on him and his countrymen when it comes to melancholy gloom, he strips out all pretense of a happy ending. There is no redemption for anyone at the end of opera. Not for the Prince, who simply dies, let alone for "poor pallid Rusalka", who is severed for all time from both the mortal and the fairy worlds, equally unable to live or to die.
It takes some damn fine music to make a tragedy like this palatable, but fortunately Bohemia's most gifted composer is more than up to the task. Rusalka has such fine music, it's really a puzzle why it isn't performed more regularly. Yes, there's the matter of the language, but that' more an excuse than anything. Singing opera in the local vernacular is as acceptable in Europe as dubbing movies, and even in the States, it's more of an affectation of the snottier houses than anything. (First two times I saw Barber of Seville in Chicago, it was in English, not Italian.)
Not to oversell Lyric's new production, but if you've got any interest whatsoever in this work, you should see it. Nuphy was very guarded going in because of the dull and dreary Met broadcast, but it seems everything they did wrong Lyric got right. The chief difference appears to be David McVicar's direction. Sir David knows drama. He's not content to let the music do all the work and he understands how to support the score instead of working at cross purposes to it.
One small example: Ježibaba's entrance. I can see how, in the wrong hands, this Czech answer to Baba Yaga could come off as nothing more than the ultimate Crazy Cat Lady. To forestall this, McVicar gives her three kinaesthetic crow-men servitors. Even so, they--with their Heckle-and-Jecklish top hats and heads--could easily have come off more comic than creepy were their moves not disturbingly lifelike. There's one moment in particular where they splay their wing-tips in a fashion so eeriely inhuman that it gave me chills. Their prancing frees Jill Grove to give her wise woman character some comic touches without diminishing the sense of menace which keeps us invested in the scene and in the scenario.
Grove is (as anyone who remembers her as the Witch in Humperdinck's holiday opera would expect) a delight. The same could be said of almost everyone in the cast, from Daniela Mack as the hapless Kitchen Boy to Brandon Jovanovich as the heartless Prince. But even in such a cast, I still think Ana María Martínez stood half a head above them as Rusalka, delivering achingly melodious arias from even the most uncomfortable of positions. It's got to be tough for a singer to spend so much time on stage without being allowed the use of her voice, which may be key to what gives her performance in the second act such poignancy.
Naturally, there are some cavils. The guests at the ball should've been a bit more unsettled by Rusalka's uncanny antics in that act than they were and the some of the Foreign Princess' wanderings upstage make little sense. Nuphy and our seat partner thought Eric Owens as Vodník was lacking some power in his lower ranges, but it was nothing that my poorly-trained ears could perceive. The set is pitched a bit too much to the floor; sitting in the balcony, you end up seeing a lot of trapdoors opening. The forest is awfully dark in Act I, but I enjoyed the effect and thought it contrasted powerfully to the bleakness of the same set in Act III.
Grim as it is, even the plot isn't as dire as it sounds. Operas, like romantic comedies, are often driven by the appalling stupidity of the protagonists at various key junctures. But here it's hard to find anyone to blame. It's all just a tragic mismatch, a metaphor for how man is inexorably drawn to nature but incapable of embracing it on its own terms, leading both to his own destruction and her irreversible injury. It's all there in John MacFarlane's claustrophobic alienating sets, whose combinations of natural and man-made elements only serve to highlight the clash between them, and underscored by McVicar's sure-handed direction.
I sometimes feel at a loss for words about the best opera productions because, like all happy families, their stories are somewhat the same. This one I feel like I could keep on babbling on about, but, if you're local, it would be far better for you to simply get out some night soon and see it.
And perhaps if more women than men were writing playscripts and libretti a century or so ago, it would be their stories which would spring to mind first and not those of the Little Mermaid and her wild-eyed silent kind. At least you can't say that Kvapil, Dvořák's librettist, didn't put his own stamp on the legend. As if to prove that the Scandinavians have nothing on him and his countrymen when it comes to melancholy gloom, he strips out all pretense of a happy ending. There is no redemption for anyone at the end of opera. Not for the Prince, who simply dies, let alone for "poor pallid Rusalka", who is severed for all time from both the mortal and the fairy worlds, equally unable to live or to die.
It takes some damn fine music to make a tragedy like this palatable, but fortunately Bohemia's most gifted composer is more than up to the task. Rusalka has such fine music, it's really a puzzle why it isn't performed more regularly. Yes, there's the matter of the language, but that' more an excuse than anything. Singing opera in the local vernacular is as acceptable in Europe as dubbing movies, and even in the States, it's more of an affectation of the snottier houses than anything. (First two times I saw Barber of Seville in Chicago, it was in English, not Italian.)
Not to oversell Lyric's new production, but if you've got any interest whatsoever in this work, you should see it. Nuphy was very guarded going in because of the dull and dreary Met broadcast, but it seems everything they did wrong Lyric got right. The chief difference appears to be David McVicar's direction. Sir David knows drama. He's not content to let the music do all the work and he understands how to support the score instead of working at cross purposes to it.
One small example: Ježibaba's entrance. I can see how, in the wrong hands, this Czech answer to Baba Yaga could come off as nothing more than the ultimate Crazy Cat Lady. To forestall this, McVicar gives her three kinaesthetic crow-men servitors. Even so, they--with their Heckle-and-Jecklish top hats and heads--could easily have come off more comic than creepy were their moves not disturbingly lifelike. There's one moment in particular where they splay their wing-tips in a fashion so eeriely inhuman that it gave me chills. Their prancing frees Jill Grove to give her wise woman character some comic touches without diminishing the sense of menace which keeps us invested in the scene and in the scenario.
Grove is (as anyone who remembers her as the Witch in Humperdinck's holiday opera would expect) a delight. The same could be said of almost everyone in the cast, from Daniela Mack as the hapless Kitchen Boy to Brandon Jovanovich as the heartless Prince. But even in such a cast, I still think Ana María Martínez stood half a head above them as Rusalka, delivering achingly melodious arias from even the most uncomfortable of positions. It's got to be tough for a singer to spend so much time on stage without being allowed the use of her voice, which may be key to what gives her performance in the second act such poignancy.
Naturally, there are some cavils. The guests at the ball should've been a bit more unsettled by Rusalka's uncanny antics in that act than they were and the some of the Foreign Princess' wanderings upstage make little sense. Nuphy and our seat partner thought Eric Owens as Vodník was lacking some power in his lower ranges, but it was nothing that my poorly-trained ears could perceive. The set is pitched a bit too much to the floor; sitting in the balcony, you end up seeing a lot of trapdoors opening. The forest is awfully dark in Act I, but I enjoyed the effect and thought it contrasted powerfully to the bleakness of the same set in Act III.
Grim as it is, even the plot isn't as dire as it sounds. Operas, like romantic comedies, are often driven by the appalling stupidity of the protagonists at various key junctures. But here it's hard to find anyone to blame. It's all just a tragic mismatch, a metaphor for how man is inexorably drawn to nature but incapable of embracing it on its own terms, leading both to his own destruction and her irreversible injury. It's all there in John MacFarlane's claustrophobic alienating sets, whose combinations of natural and man-made elements only serve to highlight the clash between them, and underscored by McVicar's sure-handed direction.
I sometimes feel at a loss for words about the best opera productions because, like all happy families, their stories are somewhat the same. This one I feel like I could keep on babbling on about, but, if you're local, it would be far better for you to simply get out some night soon and see it.