Unusually, the heroine of the new production of Rusalka by Antonín Dvořák, which was presented by the Netherlands National Opera at the end of last week, is not a fairy, but a prostitute. And she falls in love with an actor from the silver screen, whom Ježibaba helps her charm with plastic surgery.
In the production, which is characterized by a modern Hollywood style and in which the leading Czech tenor Pavel Černoch sings the prince, a pimp also appears instead of a waterman, describing review in the Spanish newspaper El País.
The new adaptation of Rusalka was directed by German Philipp Stölzl and Austrian Philipp Krenn. The former has already shot several films and video clips, for example for the groups Rammstein and Faith No More or the singer Madonna. “Stölzl’s film roots are also reflected in the processing of Rusalka. My role is far from a fairy-tale prince. In Philipp Stölzl’s view, the prince is a Hollywood movie star, and even Rusalka is not a fragile water fairy,” Pavel Černoch pointed out before the premiere.
The opera was musically staged by the thirty-seven-year-old rising star Joana Mallwitz, who was named conductor of the year by Opernwelt magazine in 2019 and who made her debut at the Salzburg Festival three years ago.
The story is shifted to New York in the 1950s. Rusalka, a girl from a slum, falls in love with the prince from the movie poster, who according to the Dutch review Theaterkrant server reminiscent of Hollywood actor Clark Gable. In this sense, the foreign princess is also a star of the silver screen, strikingly similar to the actress Marilyn Monroe.
Rusalka, already sung by the South African soprano Johanni van Oostrum, dreams of a Hollywood career on the boards of the Dutch opera. That’s why he goes to see the Ladybug, played by the American black mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis. In this story, she owns a beauty salon and an illegal plastic surgery clinic, where the heroine undergoes surgery.
In the foreground is Pavel Černoch singing Prince. | Photo: Clarchen & Matthias Baus
“Pavel Černoch sings the prince with delicacy, tenderness and, at the end, a deathly sick desire: clean, self-confident, elegant,” writes in a review by the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “The Czech tenor prince was more interesting theatrically than vocally, but he made up for his limitations in the high register with a brilliant final scene,” offers another view Spanish El País.
According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in Amsterdam they turned Dvořák’s opera into a Hollywood show, and the audience “rationed their applause remarkably well according to gender and skin color”. The women received more applause than the men and the black singer received more recognition than the white one according to the applause, according to a German critic.
The production is on the program of the Netherlands National Opera until June 25. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra plays, in addition to Johanni van Oostrum, Pavel Černoch and Raehann Bryce-Davis, Annette Dasch, Maxim Kuzmin-Karavaev and Karin Strobos also sing in it.
Dvořák’s Rusalka had its world premiere at the National Theater in Prague in 1901. The romantic work, which mixes fairy-tale characters with the real world, will also be presented for the first time by the famous opera house La Scala in Milan, Italy, this Tuesday.
On June 30, Pavel Černoch will perform with the Latvian soprano Kristīne Opolais at the Smetanova Litomyšl festival. It will be one of the few opportunities to hear him on the home stage this year. Then, the forty-nine-year-old performer will have further guest appearances in leading foreign opera houses.
In the fall, he will portray Albert Gregor in Janáček’s Veča Makropulos at the Opéra Bastille in Paris, as well as in the premiere of another Janáček opera, Její pastorkyňa, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
At the beginning of next year, the Czech tenor will meet again with Kristīne Opolais when, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Andris Nelsons, they will present a concert performance of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth in Mčenské újezd. In addition to Boston, Pavel Černoch will also head to New York’s Carnegie Hall with her. The recording of the opera will subsequently be released by the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label.
Video: Trailer from Rusalka at the Dutch National Opera
Conductor Joana Mallwitz presents a production of Rusalka at the Dutch National Opera. | Video: National Opera & Ballet
