Poor Rusalka. The title character of Antonin Dvorak’s opera is a love-struck water nymph, misunderstood and scorned. She has lengthy been appreciated however was not precisely celebrated as an operatic heroine for many years earlier than slowly rising as a darling of the opera world.
But now, “Rusalka” is having a second which will allure even probably the most jaded of water nymphs. The opera will make its debut at La Scala in Milan subsequent month, 122 years after it first delighted audiences in Dvorak’s native Czech homeland in 1901. Many would possibly say it’s lengthy overdue at one of many world’s most prestigious opera homes, however for the inventive staff assembled at La Scala it’s an opportunity to find, or rediscover, an opera nonetheless being interpreted greater than a century later.
“Rusalka,” playing six performances from June 6 to 22, relies on Slavic folklore (with parallels to the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Little Mermaid”). Rusalka lives in a lake along with her water-goblin father and falls in love with a prince. With the assistance of a neighborhood witch and a potion, she decides to develop into a human to win her prince. Let’s simply say that issues don’t precisely go her method.
The opera is thought principally for its first-act aria “Song to the Moon” — championed by many high-profile sopranos over the previous couple of many years, including Renée Fleming — which has helped cement its place at a number of main opera homes. And now at La Scala.
“I’ve directed at many opera homes and within the repertoire of every of them there was a minimum of one opera that was conspicuously absent,” Dominique Meyer, the artistic director and chief executive of La Scala, stated by e-mail. “When I used to be directing the Vienna [State] Opera, we realized that ‘Anna Bolena’ had by no means been carried out there. At La Scala, one thing comparable occurred with ‘Rusalka.’”
Mr. Meyer stated the debut manufacturing was the perfect automobile to carry again Emma Dante, a theater and movie director identified for her 2013 movie “A Street in Palermo” in addition to avant-garde theater and opera productions. Mr. Meyer cited her “creativeness and sensitivity.”
“I’m pleased to come back again to La Scala with an opera whose protagonist is a lady,” Ms. Dante stated in a video interview. “My first time was with ‘Carmen,’ and I felt a robust reference to this lady, simply as I do now with Rusalka.”
Ms. Dante stated she feels Rusalka’s journey into the human world — and her want to be accepted there — is a timeless matter and relevant at present in a world of refugees and political turmoil worldwide.
“She arrives in a land that’s not her land, so I’m enthusiastic about that transformation,” Ms. Dante stated. “I’m additionally deeply enthusiastic about how the neighborhood doesn’t settle for her variety.”
She labored with the costume designer Vanessa Sannino and the set designer Carmine Maringola, each of whom she has collaborated with earlier than, to do greater than emphasize the fairy-tale side of the story.
“This Rusalka gained’t have the fish tail like a mermaid, however she can have tentacles like an octopus, which you’ll see in a wheelchair when she first comes onto land,” Ms. Dante defined. “Also, we gained’t have a lake, however as an alternative the church and the prince’s palace will each be flooded to signify a world adrift. This flooded world is a catastrophic explanation for nonacceptance, of intolerance towards these of various origins and look.”
Ms. Sannino additionally wished to emphasise the witch and the prince on this otherworldly setting.
“We wished the witch to be like a madonna, monochromatic purple and immense and fabricated from muscle fibers,” she stated. “And the lightness that we determined to provide the prince will be discovered within the flowers and butterflies in his cloak and within the armor he wears.”
This strategy appears becoming for an opera based mostly on folklore, and never, say, a romantic Italian opera based mostly on a well-known guide and particular to its time and place. It’s additionally open to discovery from a musical perspective.
“It’s genius music, however Dvorak was not often known as a typical opera composer, and due to this fact it comes with some difficulties that may not all the time promote the piece,” stated the Czech conductor Tomas Hanus in a telephone interview from his dwelling in Brno, Czech Republic. He is making his debut at La Scala with “Rusalka,” which he additionally performed on the Vienna State Opera (in his debut there in 2017) and in Copenhagen, Helsinki and Munich. “The Czech composing colleges didn’t all the time train the way to write these large romantic operatic scores. It’s very depending on the interpretation of singers and conductors.”
That is a sentiment echoed by the Ukrainian soprano Olga Bezsmertna, who will sing the title position, which she has come to adore (she sang it on the Vienna State Opera in 2014 and 2020 and final yr in Bratislava, Slovakia). It turns into extra layered every time she sings it, she stated.
“It’s a really tough opera, however my voice feels at dwelling as a result of I don’t need to push,” Ms. Bezsmertna stated in a telephone interview from her dwelling in Vienna. “My first time in Vienna, I jumped in 5 days earlier than the primary efficiency. I actually didn’t have time to consider what to do. But it’s good for a lyric soprano voice.”
Ms. Bezsmertna has grown into the character extra prior to now few years, she stated, particularly the journey Rusalka takes each emotionally and musically.
“The second act is so fully completely different from the primary act as a result of she is destroyed,” Ms. Bezsmertna stated. “It’s not a fairy story anymore. She’s alone, and the prince loves one other lady. Life has modified fully.”
And it’s in that fairy-tale-versus-real-world scenario the place “Rusalka” appears to flourish, regardless of its darkish corners, for individuals who know the opera or for first-time viewers on the debut at La Scala.
“Death may be very current in ‘Rusalka,’ however we now have to maintain this concept of lightness,” Ms. Dante stated. “It’s a tragedy, but it surely’s nonetheless a fairy story. And we all the time have to have a look at loss of life as an event for rebirth.”
Content Source: www.nytimes.com