Rusalka - Antonín Dvořák | Opera

Approximate Running Time: 3 hours 20 minutes, including two 20-minute intermissions.
Language: Performed in Czech, with surtitles in Czech and English.
Audience: Suitable for ages 12 and above.

Synopsis

Act 1

A meadow by the edge of a lake

Three wood sprites tease the water goblin, Vodník, ruler of the lake. Rusalka, the water nymph, tells her father the water goblin that she has fallen in love with a human prince who comes to hunt around the lake, and she wants to become human to embrace him. He tells her it is a bad idea, but nonetheless steers her to a witch, Ježibaba, for assistance. Rusalka sings her "Song to the Moon", asking it to tell the prince of her love. Ježibaba tells Rusalka that, if she becomes human, she will lose the power of speech and immortality; moreover, if she does not find love with the prince, he will die and she will be eternally damned. Rusalka agrees to the terms and drinks a potion. The prince, hunting a white doe, finds Rusalka, embraces her, and leads her away, as her father and sisters lament.

Act 2

The garden of the prince's castle

A gamekeeper and his nephew, the kitchen boy, note that the prince is to be married to a mute and nameless bride. They suspect witchcraft and doubt it will last, as the prince is already lavishing attentions on a foreign princess who is a wedding guest. The foreign princess, jealous, curses the couple. The prince rejects Rusalka. Rusalka then goes back to the lake with her father the water goblin. Though she has now won the prince's affections, the foreign princess is disgusted by the prince's fickleness and betrayal and she scorns him, telling him to follow his rejected bride to Hell.

Act 3

A meadow by the edge of a lake

Rusalka returns to the lake and laments about her fate. She meets Ježibaba and asks for a solution to her woes. Ježibaba gives her a knife and tells her that she can save herself if she kills the prince with it. Rusalka rejects this, throwing the dagger into the lake. Rusalka becomes a will-o'-the-wisp, a spirit of death living in the depths of the lake, emerging only to lure humans to their deaths. The gamekeeper and the kitchen boy are worried about the deteriorating condition of the prince, and go to the lake in order to get rid of Rusalka. They meet Ježibaba and lash out on Rusalka's betrayal, but are rebutted by the water goblin, who says that it was actually the prince that betrayed Rusalka. The wood sprites mourn Rusalka's plight. The prince, searching for his white doe, comes to the lake, senses Rusalka, and calls for her. Rusalka appears and is now able to speak to him. He asks her to kiss him, even knowing her kiss means death. They kiss and he dies; and the water goblin comments that all sacrifices are futile. In her final song, Rusalka tells the prince, "For your love, for that beauty of yours, for your inconstant human passion, for everything by which my fate is cursed, human soul, God have mercy on you!"