Above: production shot from Rusalka – Credit: Opéra Royal de Wallonie / JBerger
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Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège, presents Rusalka, a captivating fairy tale steeped in Slavic mythology. This performance is conducted by Giampaolo Bisanti and explores Rusalka’s tragic love for a human prince and her desperate quest for a soul. Corinne Winters sings the title role of the water nymph Rusalka, with Anton Rositskiy and Jana Kurucová completing the principal cast. This lyrical journey, composed by Antonin Dvořák, weaves a tale of love that resonates long after the curtain falls.
The poet and playwright Jaroslav Kvapil was inspired by the German romantic story of La Motte-Fouque, the Ondine, which was very successful throughout Europe. The Little Mermaid, a famous fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, was the most famous illustration. Antonín Dvořak, the most famous Czech composer, was looking for a libretto for his new opera. Kvapil proposed Rusalka, which immediately seduced the composer. In the spring of 1901, the magnificent and moving work immediately met with triumphant success and today is one of the most performed operas.
A large part of the work was composed during the summer, in the countryside. Not far from his home, the composer often strolled around a lake that fascinated him. There he found, in imagining the undine and all the aquatic mythology, the inspiration and the atmosphere of his sublime drama.
If the famous “Chant a la Lune” has become one of the favorite arias of romantic lyric art, the entire opera is worth a visit, happily playing with a sublime orchestration and masterfully highlighting a vocalist particularly adapted to each character.
Rusalka, a water nymph, has fallen in love with a prince and wishes to become human. The witch Ježibaba performs a spell that forces the water nymph to remain mute. Tired of her silence, the prince turns away from her and falls in love with a foreign princess. When the Prince tries to repent, Rusalka confesses the effects of the spell and drags him under the water.
Summary courtesy of Opéra Royal de Wallonie.
About the Host:
Lisa Flynn has been a program host and producer for WFMT since 1991. She presents The New Releases and has hosted many programs for the WFMT Radio Network, including War Letters (which won the 2002 Peter Lisagor Award) and a series of live broadcasts from Salzburg to celebrate Mozart’s 250th birthday in 2006. As WFMT’s midday weekday announcer, Lisa hosts live studio performances and interviews guest artists including Renée Fleming, John Adams, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, John Eliot Gardiner, and many others. Before coming to Chicago, Lisa presented classical music at WOSU in Columbus, Ohio, and at WMFE and WUCF in Orlando, Florida. She holds a music degree from the University of Central Florida.
This program is a part of the WFMT Radio Network Opera Series, a series designed to complement the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts to fill out the year with great Opera content. The series begins in June and lasts until December.
