Antonin Dvorak: Rusalka

Soloists:

Eilene Hannan, Ann Howard, John Treleaven

Orchestra, choir:

English National Opera choir and orchestra

Conductor:

Mark Elder

Director:

David Pountney

Critics and audiences alike were enchanted by David Pountney's remarkable production of Dvo?ák's spellbinding fairy-tale opera at the English National Opera. The production is set in a Victorian nursery, where a teenage girl on the cusp of sensual awakening dreams of first love. Her story is the same as that of Rusalka, the forest maiden who, like Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid, sacrifices everything for a love that is doomed to failure. High above the stage, Rusalka swings dreamily as the picturesque world gives way to the surreal. Influenced by Jung and Freud, Magritte and Delvaux, Pountney's Rusalka is magically realized in Stefanos Lazaridis's set design and succeeds in creating a fairy tale that enchants even the most hardened modern audience. David Pountney notes that Rusalka tells of "a typical initiation into social and sexual experience" – the development from child to young woman. He conjures up an enchanting world dominated by repression and surreal fantasy. The sets are spacious, gleaming white and full of archetypal symbols, such as a rocking horse, a wardrobe, sliding furniture, dancing dolls and floorboards that reveal a swimming pool with a swing above it. The impression creates a dream world that balances on the edge of a nightmare.