It speaks to the powerful stage presence of Andrea Brassói-Jőrös that she maintains the tension despite a libretto that has Rusalka being struck dumb for most of Act 2 of Dvořák’s signature opera. But in her role as the tragic water nymph who falls in love with a mortal, dooming them both, she was not the only good thing in the Hungarian State Opera’s new production. Director János Szikora resists the temptation to superimpose false 21st-century “relevance” to the work by shifting it to a space and time more familiar to a contemporary audience. Instead, he works with the composer and librettist’s original concept, to present a “lyric fairy tale” that still enchants more than a century after its first performance.
Dvořák’s opera is based on a Czech fairy tale of a water sprite who yearns to become human, a concept taken up by other storytellers such as Hans Christian Andersen. Rusalka, though, tells a deeper story, one also portrayed by Wagner in Lohengrin: the conflict between the mortal and the spirit worlds can only be a tale of love doomed from the start by their irreconcilability.
The water spirit’s wish for legs comes at a price. Rusalka is struck dumb, the tribute exacted by the witch Ježibaba, and it’s a shame here because it deprives the audience of a good half-hour of Brassói-Jőrös singing. Her fresh, unstrained voice loosened up by the end of Act 1 for an ardent rendering of her Song to the Moon, made all the poignant because it comes shortly before she is forced to fall silent. That she kept the audience invested until she started singing again near the end of Act 2 was a tribute to acting that conveyed the suffering of an otherworldly creature adrift in a world to which she can never hope to belong.
Yet how could she have expected any other fate? The Prince is after all a passionate man. But as an ethereal creature, Rusalka's love for him can only be spiritual. As her paramour, Zoltán Nyári invested proper drama into the role of a man demanding more from his lover than she can ever give. He pushed occasionally for the high notes, even resorting to falsetto in one instance. Erika Gál did not have to resort to any vocal workarounds as Ježibaba, capturing the full range of the role without compromise. Rouged and lip-sticked, she may have looked more worldly than wicked. But the musical menace of her incantation that will transform Rusalka was as close to spooky as it gets in opera.
As the Foreign Princess who woos the Prince away from Rusalka, Szilvia Rálik gave Gál a sartorial run for the money in her red-gowned splendour and a performance marred only by the slight wobble in her lower tones. Károly Szemerédy’s Vodník, the water goblin, was clearly not used to land judging by his lack of movement on stage. But bearded and green, he looked the part of the river denizen. And his fine bass-baritone gave his Vodník the gravitas needed for his warnings to his daughter to reconsider her decision or bring doom upon herself and the man she loves.
Among the smaller roles, Laura Topolánszky shone as the fearful kitchen boy mugging her way to the witch's lair, but all the others were good as well. Adrienn Rafai-Vetési’s choreography moved things along briskly where more action was needed, as did conductor Péter Halász with his sensitive interpretation of a score dripping with lyrical Slavic mystery.
In opting for “less is more”, Éva Szendrényi's set designs support the singers instead of detracting from their artistry. A suspended arched stairway in the outer acts serve as a metaphor for rising from the waters while also giving the singers a space other than the static stage to perform from. The cliff housing Ježibaba’s lair is to the right, the palace blue-bricked in Act 2. Kati Zoób's costumes hew true to the characters, whether Vodník's headdress of water plants, the gala outfits of the partygoers in the castle, or the sombre black of the Prince and Rusalka in the opera's closing minutes. Their duet is call and response, a poignant final reminder of how the spiritual and temporal worlds can never become one.
