Concert Hall

Music by Antonin Dvorak
Libretto by Jaroslav Kvapil

From the very outset of his creative career, Dvořák regarded opera as the centremost genre in music. Born at a time when the idea of a national opera house was born in Bohemia, the composer in his youth had the possibility of discovering and familiarising himself with the musical stage and acquiring rich practical experience. Having worked for ten years as a violist in the orchestra of Prague’s Provisional Theatre, Dvořák personally brought about the birth of Czech national opera: in 1866 the position of Principal Conductor was occupied by Bedřich Smetana, who had overseen the premieres of his first operatic works – The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, Prodaná nevěsta (The Bartered Bride) and Dalibor, which went on to become classics of Czech musical theatre. At the close of his life, Dvořák, regretting the fact that his operatic legacy lay in the shadow of his works in other genres, took a decision: “I want to dedicate all of my powers to the creation of an opera.” It was during these years that Rusalka was written – the second last and the finest of all ten works by the composer written for the musical stage.

The unhappy love story of Rusalka for the Prince drew the attention of many of the great men of the pen and of music. In the “romantic” 19th century it was particularly popular: de la Motte Fouquй and Zhukovsky, Pushkin and Andersen, Hoffmann and Lortzing, Davydov and Dargomyzhsky had all turned their eyes on it… The basis of Dvořák’s opera lies in a version of the subject written by the young dramatist Jaroslav Kvapil in the folkloric style. The love story skilfully weaves together Czech sources, the poetry of which utterly enraptured the composer, fairytales by Bojena Nemtsova, ballads by Karel Jaromír Erben and folk legends. Inspired by the libretto, Dvořák worked extremely quickly and the score was completed after seven months.

Rusalka is a beautiful, lyric fairytale, where the Czech genius’ melodic gift and his skill as a symphonic composer appear at their most majestic. There is much in it that brings to mind another musical story of a fairytale girl and a worldly man – Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden. Particularly expressive are Dvořák’s inspired scenes of the nature of Bohemia, woodland romanticism, the fantasy world of mermaids, forest wardens and, already familiar from the vivid symphonic “portraits” by the composer, the characters of the Water-Sprite and the Witch (in this case Ježibaba – the Czech version of Baba Yaga). One masterpiece of Dvořák’s lyricism comes in Rusalka’s song “My moon, in the distant heavens” from Act I: filled with light femininity and Slavic intimacy, it is a true jewel in the crown of the soprano repertoire.

Presented at the National Theatre of Prague in 1901, Rusalka became Dvořák’s loudest triumph in opera (the role of the principal female character was performed by outstanding Russian singer and Mariinsky Theatre soloist Maria Mikhailova). Over the subsequent five years, the opera was performed around eight hundred times, and soon began to win over opera houses and audiences across the globe.

Nadezhda Kulygina