La Rusalka di Dvorak

Speranza

When it comes to nymphs and princes, water and earth don’t mix.

A ‘Rusalka’ s hows two sides at the Metropolitan Opera.

Dvorak’s “Rusalka,” about a water nymph doomed by her love for a human prince, is a fairy tale.

But is it polite and placid?

Or is it ravage and strange?

There’s disagreement about the answer at the Metropolitan Opera, where a decidedly mixed revival of the work opened on Thursday evening.

The conductor, Nézet-Séguin, a prime candidate to replace James Levine some day as the Met’s music director, offers a clear vote for savage.

The conductor led a fierce orchestral performance, bringing out the symphonic sweep in Dvorak’s score and underlining its most cutting details.

Taking the opposite view — that the opera is essentially mild — was the prim prima donna Renée Fleming.

The role of Rusalka has long been a trademark of Fleming's.

Fleming sang the soaring “Song to the Moon” at the National Council Auditions Winners Concert, her first appearance on the Met stage.

Twenty-six years later, Fleming returns to it yet again, her status as the most prominent singer of her generation cemented by the recent news that she will perform the national anthem at the Super Bowl on Feb. 2.

As in Verdi’s “Otello” at the Met, Fleming paced herself cannily, ending the evening with only a slight hiccup obscuring the final floated high note.

But Rusalka, with her most irresistible music coming at the start, showcases fewer of Fleming’s strengths than did the slower-burning Desdemona.

And the role highlights the vocal and dramatic cautiousness that was once masked by the sheer plushness of her soprano.

Fleming's  neutral presence is particularly limiting during Act II, when Rusalka’s power of speech has been stolen to make her mortal.

Silenced, Fleming radiates vague discomfort rather than desperation or pain.

When her voice is returned in Act III, for every clear, creamy phrase, there was another — often in the middle or low range — that is faint and characterless.

There was no such blandness in Nézet-Séguin’s conducting.

Each act had its own arc and mood, yet he located the ominous door-knock rhythm from the introduction constantly, even in the most seemingly lyrical passages.

The playing was superb, from the shining brasses and sharp bite of the woodwinds in the first act, to the eerie shifts of tempo in the prelude to the second, and, in Act III, the slashing double basses and somber focus of the accompaniment to the Kitchen Boy’s story.

This is not to say that the performance was without vocal interest.

The tenor Pietro Beczala was wonderful as the Prince, his voice elegant and impassioned.

Strained by the end of his extended Act II monologue, the bass-baritone John Relyea, as the Water Gnome, elsewhere summoned strength and steadiness.

As the Witch, Jezibaba, the mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick was steely but without much personality.
Making her Met debut as the enigmatic Foreign Princess, the soprano Emily Magee sounded potent but a bit distant, like a forest fire viewed from far away.

Smaller parts were well cast, including Alexey Lavrov (Hunter), Vladimir Chmelo (Gamekeeper) and the vibrant Julie Boulianne (Kitchen Boy).

This drearily picturesque production, with sets by Günther Schneider-Siemssen, was originally directed by Otto Schenk in 1993.

After the evocative opening image — a haunting pond amid a rocky forest — it becomes clear that there is no perspective on the characters or plot strong enough to guide the audience through a long, static evening.

Particularly given brilliant, contemporary-minded recent interpretations of “Rusalka” by directors like Stefan Herheim (who made it a twisted carnival) and Martin Kusej (who connected it to recent cases of abuse and captivity), Schenk’s empty-headed, Magic Kingdom realism feels limp and unambitious.

The production is dated not just aesthetically but also in the vision of opera it represents.
“Rusalka” runs through Feb. 15 at the Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center; 212-362-6000, metoperafamily.org.