Rusalka

Rusalka is a water nymph who pines to have human form so she can embrace the beloved prince who keeps jumping into her lake. A forest witch gives her legs so she can walk the earth -“ and a human soul -“ but the deal has some ugly conditions if the love match doesn’t last.

Antonin Dvorak chose this European fairy story (which Hans Christian Anderson also picked up for The Little Mermaid) to make what is his only opera to be still performed outside his Czech homeland. The sweeping Dvorak score is the real star, with moments of drama and odd character but all richly orchestrated and melodic.

Dvorak has been dead a hundred years but he’s lucky to have Australia’s Cheryl Barker in this vocally demanding title role. She’s sensational as the ethereal, blonde beauty who walks now on earth but for the privilege is cursed to be forever mute.

Her prince is bewitched and the court, while bitching about the outcaste, prepares for a royal wedding. The prince then shows how human, and how carnal, he is. Tenor Rosario La Spina is not physically well cast in the role but he has a fine voice.

It’s okay that Rusalka is wordless but he’s angry that she’s too frigid, born of cold water as she is, to give over. So he falls for a visiting princess. She is far more red-blooded than the icy-white Rusalka and as her rival Elizabeth Whitehouse sings a treat.

This Opera North production from Britain makes much of the colour contrasts between the blood-red world of humans and the icy white purity of the watery underworld of Rusalka and her kin. The stage design matches the score in underlining the stratospheric, almost Wagnerian contrast between these two worlds.

The humans may have souls and blood, but are lustful, faithless and destructive. The watery world on the other hand is balanced, environmentally akin but without passion -“ or legs!

Director Olivia Fuchs and her designer bring a witty post-modernism to the old tale. The witch is recast as a malevolent scientist in white coat and high heels, while the naughty wood nymphs are like English schoolgirls on heat.

It’s odd that Rusalka is so desperate to embrace the prince but then, after her efforts, too frigid to really get down to it. Anyway, even the prince realises his loss and by the end swoons for her cursed kiss of death.

This Rusalka is a totally entrancing and provocative opera experience.

Rusalka is at the Sydney Opera House until 28 March.