Antonín Dvořák, Rusalka, “Běda! Běda! Ubohá Rusalko bledá”

David Weigel (Vodník)

Rusalka (1900) is the most breathtakingly romantic score among the ten operas of Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904). It’s also a work that can leave listeners in floods of tears, due to its devastatingly moving depiction of star-crossed love. In our time, sopranos such as Renée Fleming and Ana María Martínez have brought it greater attention, but nonetheless it has yet to enjoy a popularity to match that of any opera in the standard repertoire. The only reason for this is surely the Czech text, with its particularly challenging combinations of consonants that can be intimidating to anyone who doesn’t speak the language. No doubt if this piece were written in one of the familiar operatic languages—that is, French, German, or Italian—it would be a fixture in every opera house in the world, instead of a piece that most of us will encounter in live performance comparatively rarely in our operagoing lives.

In this dark reimagining of “The Little Mermaid” tale, a water nymph, Rusalka, tells her father, the Vodník (also commonly referred to as the Water Sprite), that she longs for human love. Despite the Vodník’s fears for her, she asks the forest witch, Ježibaba, to transform her into a mortal woman. Ježibaba does so, the condition being that Rusalka must sacrifice her ability to speak. The prince Rusalka loves finds her and brings her back to his castle, where he becomes increasingly frustrated that she can’t communicate. Meanwhile, he’s pursued by a foreign princess who professes to love him as well. The Vodník surreptitiously appears at the castle, sadly declaring, “Pitiful, pale Rusalka! Alas! Alas! Alas!” In a deeply melancholy, two-verse aria with a sweet, almost folksong-like refrain, he laments that Rusalka’s desire to be human will prove futile.

Photos: Kyle Flubacker