Rusalka
Music by Antonín Dvořák
Libretto by Jaroslav Kvapil
Directed by Sir David McVicar
at Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker (map)
thru March 16 | tickets: $69-$299 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
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A haunting tale of tragic love
Lyric Opera of Chicago presents
Rusalka
Review by Keith Glab
One of the most popular Czech operas of all time has finally made its way to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Rusalka combines the Slavic myth of the Rusalki – undead women who lure lustful men to their watery deaths – with Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid.
A week passes, but Rusalka shows little passion for the prince, and he soon falls in love with a foreign princess (Ekaterina Gubanova), who schemes to break the couple up for vengeance. Having failed at love, Rusalka wanders around dazed, unable to return to the sister nymphs she had abandoned even to die. The Ježibaba offers her peace only if she agrees to kill the prince, who is in a similar state of despair, with a kiss.
Martínez, a celebrated Lyric veteran, knocks the famous “Song to the Moon” aria out of the park and beautifully handles all of the other vocal duties given to her. Her weaknesses as an actor get exposed during her mute second act, however, as she only features a couple of facial expressions and hand gestures in her repertoire. This is a shame, because Sir David McVicar gives her several opportunities to portray Rusalka as a fish out of water in these scenes, and they don’t come off as well as they could have.
The best performances come from Jill Grove as the Ježibaba and Eric Owens as Vodnik, the water goblin who is father to Rusalka. Grove’s strong mezzo-soprano voice dominates her scenes, and she gives the witch such a playful wickedness as to make her somehow likeable. Owens crawls around the stage with froglike appendages, but this does not prevent him from booming out the most powerful vocals in all senses of the word. The Wood Nymphs’ projection issues appear more pronounced juxtaposed against Owens’ thunder. The Gamekeeper (Philip Horst) and Kitchen Boy (Daniela Mack) perform solidly in their scenes that provide unnecessary exposition but inject some welcome humor into this dark tale.
What elevates this opera are incredible production values, even by the Lyric’s high standards. The impossibly tall, shifting woods and moon in the first and third acts make it difficult to resist running onto the stage and playing along with the nymphs. The second act features both a fiery kitchen and lavish ballroom, and the transitions between them happen unbelievably quickly. This scenery is more than mere spectacle; the stone dam in the lake, a giant meat carcass in the kitchen, and dozens of stag heads on the ballroom walls conspire to push a theme of man destroying nature that only exists subtlely in the libretto. The number of dancers onstage for the ballroom scene must have approached fifty, all with lavish costumes and many with acrobatic dance acumen.
The haunting musical score conducted by Sir Andrew Davis completes a sensory experience in which opera patrons of all experience levels can revel. This dark, underperformed opera may not play in Chicago again for some time, and it likely will not be performed so well.
Rating: ★★★½
Rusalka continues through March 16th at Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker (map). Tickets are $69-$299, and are available by phone (312-322-2244) or online through their website (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at LyricOpera.org. (Running time: 3 hours 45 minutes, includes intermissions)
Photos by Todd Rosenberg and Robert Kusel
artists
cast
Lauren Snouffer (First Wood Nymph), J’nai Bridges (Second Wood Nymph), Cynthia Hanna (Third Wood Nymph), Eric Owens (Vodnik), Ana María Martínez (Rusalka), Jill Grove (Ježibaba); Anthony Clark Evans (Hunter), Brandon Jovanovich (Prince), Philip Horst (Gamekeeper), Daniela Mack (Kitchen Boy), Ekaterina Gubanova (Foreign Princess)
principal dancers
Kristina Ancil, Paul Chritiano, Veronica Guadalupe, Elizabeth Luse, Christina Luzwick, Luke Manley, Sarah Olson, Todd Rhoades, James Monroe Stevko, Teanna Zarro
behind the scenes
Sir David McVicar (director), Sir Andrew Davis (conductor), John Macfarlane (set design), Moritz Junge (costumes); David Finn (lighting), Andrew George (choreography), Michael Black (chorus master), Sarah Hatten (wig and makeup design), Caroline Moores (stage manager), Todd Rosenberg (photos)
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