Magical mix casts its spell in grim fairy tale

ONCE upon a time, there was a beautiful water nymph who lived in a lake… It is a standard enough way to begin a fairy tale – but Rusalka is no standard fairy tale. Dvorak’s lyric opera may tell the familiar story of the Little Mermaid – but it derives from a darker place than Disney.

The story is simple enough. Rusalka falls in love with a mortal man, a Prince, no less, and is determined to become human and marry him. Jezibaba the witch enables her to do so – but warns her that she will lose her voice and, should her lover be unfaithful, she will be damned for all eternity, neither dead nor fully alive. But Rusalka’s path of true love, as you can well imagine, runs far from smooth…

Although premiered at the National Theatre in Prague on March 31, 1901, this is only the second time Rusalka has been produced in Scotland. The first was at the 1964 Edinburgh Festival by the opera company of the National Theatre in Prague.

So it’s been more than 50 years – but it has been very well worth the wait.

This Rusalka is a very fine production indeed. In the title role, French soprano Anne Sophie Duprels dazzled during her journey from innocence to damnation.

In one sense, you didn’t want to watch it; in another, you couldn’t take your eyes off her.

In the famous Song to the Moon in Act I, the ethereal beauty of her voice left disturbing undertones of her impending doom. It was a stunning performance.

As the Prince, tenor Peter Wedd was another character on a journey to a horrible destination. During it, his transformation was complete. His haughty air of cold command turned out to have been a façade as the dawning realisation that he had spurned true love led to his becoming utterly unhinged.

As Rusalka’s water goblin father Vodnik, Sir Willard White received a warmly affectionate reception. Although approaching his eighth decade, he is still expressively in control of his deep bass timbre.

Leah-Marian Jones was manipulatively magisterial as Jezibaba, allowing others to become trapped in a web mostly of their own making.

Natalya Romaniw, the Foreign Princess who sets the tragedy in train by wheedling the Prince away from Rusalka, was a true pantomime villainess, a literal and metaphorical scarlet woman.

This production sees Stuart Stratford’s first conducting appearance since becoming Scottish Opera’s music director a year or so ago.

He is something of an East European specialist… and it showed. He drew a fine performance of Dvorak’s soaring musical themes from the orchestra that must bode well for the future. Talking of which, details of Scottish Opera’s new season for 2016-17 will be released shortly.

Originating from Grange Park Opera, director and designer Antony McDonald’s production is a delight. The lake, with its multiple layers and simulated waves, is a practical and artistic triumph, overcoming the obvious problems of having a convincing ‘body of water’ on stage.

Act II was a tour de force, with the wedding guests growing ever more Anne Sophie Duprels as Rusalka, top, with Sir Willard White as her father decadent as Rusalka is prepared for her nuptials. Giving the female guests fishtail dresses was an especially clever touch – and serving up salmon to Rusalka a deliciously nasty one.

Although potentially gory in the extreme, this production is far less vividly visceral than some. Here, the menace is mostly in the mind, allowing the audience to exercise its imagination, Quite right too.

Overall, this Rusalka is a breathtaking combination of music, singing, dance and theatre – just what opera should be and what opera at Theatre Royal will be more and more in the coming years, I fancy. Now that really would be a fairy tale.

For Rusalka, of course, there is no fairy tale. In this dark fable, no one lives happily ever after.

Rusalka, Scottish Opera, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, tomorrow.