A dark and twisted Little Mermaid tale swims into the Glasshouse Theatre
RUSALKA ★★★★
Glasshouse Theatre, QPAC, through July 4th
We all remember Ariel’s undersea world full of fishing friends, chirpy songs and colorful Disney adventures.
Against this, RusalkaThe curtain rises above a dark lake bed inhabited by sad, bald-headed female polyps in gray, mud-stained aprons. Their patriarch, Vodnik (Warwick Fyfe), is as much a cult leader as the Water King; It’s little wonder that his sad fairy daughter, Rusalka (Eleanor Lyons), stares at the dry land and wants to be where people are. Or so it seems.
Czech Romantic composer Antonin Dvorak is best known for his orchestral works. New World Symphony, but his ninth opera Rusalka (1900) has risen from the depths in recent years to become a canonical favorite.
This is an Eastern European interpretation of the folk tales that inspired Hans Christian Andersen’s work. The Little Mermaid. The composer’s tightly orchestrated score is supported by Czech folk melody and Wagner’s leitmotif; musical cues that signal characters, emotions, and manifestations. It literally holds the listener by the hand with flutes that indicate the beating of hearts, shimmering harps that evoke sunlight on water, and timpani that indicate the forces of fate. It doesn’t really matter if they sing in Czech (with subtitles).
In the version of the story adapted by Dvorak’s librettist Jaroslav Kvapil, the hero longs for the human Prince (Rosario La Spina) and makes a deal with a witch. Here she is referred to as Jezibaba and is played by Ashlyn Tymms as a sarcastic bag lady; Try to leave without humming the magic song, the playfully sinister waltz cury mury fuk.
Rusalka’s transformation into a human means changing her voice to a full head of hair and a flashier wardrobe. But the love of men like the Prince is fickle, and the human world is a shallow fraud. Much of the humor comes from the heroine’s inability to get down in a tight skirt, and the expectations of the cynical crowd are similarly restrictive.
This dark and twisted film directed by Sarah Giles Rusalka He comes having performed with different leading actors in Sydney last year and Perth the year before. The arrangement allows state opera companies to share significant costs, and why not when the show they collectively produce is this strange and fascinating?
For Brisbane, Lyons (accompanied by her husband, Vladimir Fanshil, as conductor) is the equivalent of the many stirring trills in Dvorak’s score and her rendition of the famous melody. Song to the Moon The aria eclipses the sublimity. When Rusalka loses her voice in the second act, the orchestra takes over the task of conveying her emotional state and Rusalka can focus on her acting; Giles reveals a rich psychological depth through his use of blocking and gesture.
Set designer Charles Davis gives us a serene lake backdrop with a lily-dotted ceiling, the angular confines of a pillared castle, and a strange green netherworld populated by ghosts.
Then there are Renee Mulder’s delightfully unbalanced costumes. Wood sprites have long arms that resemble tree roots, party guests wear helmet-like masks, and Jezibaba reigns supreme in front of a Muppet-like entourage. When all the actors come out to say hello at the end of the movie, it’s like someone turned on all the lights at one of Freddie Mercury’s parties.
Disney’s mermaid Ariel is on the fast track from paternal control to submissive companionship. This opera isn’t sure if love is worth it or if growing up itself is such a good idea. Who is Rusalka? It’s clear that the opera producers had a lot of fun trying to figure this out.
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Nick Dent is a Culture Reporter for the Brisbane Times covering arts, entertainment and things to do in the city.Connect via email.
