raping nature
by
Douglas Messerli
Jaroslav
Kvapil (libretto), Antonín Dvořák (composer) Rusalka / Howard and I saw the HD Live broadcast of the
Metropolitan Opera Company production on Saturday, February 25, 2017
But act two makes it clear, despite the
fact that Rusalka hardly gets a chance to sing, that the heart of this opera is
a bit closer to Wagner’s Tristan and
Isolde and even, in parts, has more elements of the great Ring than of Hansel and Gretel.
Most of act Two is played out in the
form of an elaborate and erotically-charged Baroque-like series of dances
(marvelously choreographed by Austin McCormick) which not only appall poor
Rusalka but represent the antithesis of her spiritual existence. Indeed, during
the first intermissions, singer Opolais described that performing Rusalka was a
presentation of a soul rather than of a heart. In their elaborately brocaded
costumes these dancers are almost entirely about frivolous flirtation and
meaningless passion.
Worried for his daughter, the Water
Gnome appears at the party to reassure her and argue for the necessity of
winning over the Prince; yet his daughter can only see how things are. As
director Mary Zimmerman suggested, no love can be consummated when one of the lovers
is hiding her true identity, and is not allowed to express the truth.
Act Three is simply—or maybe not so
imply—a fulfilling of Ježibaba’s warnings. Poor Rusalka, wandering what is now
a fallen world, is indeed frozen out of the world’s one-time beauty, yet
refuses to possibly save herself by personally killing her former lover.
Unfortunately, in this last act the
composer felt the need to wrap up everything by reintroducing nearly all of the
opera’s characters, including the minor servants of Act Two, the dancing water
sprites, Ježibaba and her consorts, and the Water Gnome before returning the
bereaved and sorrowful Prince, who, even when he is told that kissing his
former lover will mean his death, would prefer living with her in eternity than
losing forever her embrace.
Yet even their Tristan and Isolde moment
does not release them, as her father explains; in his world there is no such
thing as human sacrifice, only death. And, at opera’s end Rusalka, as promised,
is now an eternal wanderer who cannot share in the spiritual nor the world of
human passion.
Despite conductor Sir Mark Elder’s long
devotion to what he describes as a major opera, however, the very subject
matter of Ruslka, particularly given
its clotted last act, and its rough-hewn roots in folklore, make for a less
profound experience that many great opera. Having said that, this work, and
particularly the new MET production, with its numerous beautifully musical and
dance moments, with lovely sets and costumes as well, help to reveal the operas
many charms—all of which the MET opera-goers, both inside the opera house
itself and inside the movie theater in which I sat, were highly appreciated.
Los Angeles,
February 26, 2017