The Silent Woman

0,0003279 Operatic characters live and die by their voice. However persuasive the performer’s acting or imaginative the mise-en-scene, it is through their singing that characters reveal their identity, and that we the audience are seduced to take interest in their story. Pity, then, poor Rusalka, whose longing to enter the world of adult sexuality can only be fulfilled at the expense of her powers of speech, and who is forced to endure the central act of her opera almost mute apart from its final moments. Only with her banishment to a shadowy underworld, and the fatal kiss that secures both the death of her lover and of her youthful illusions, can Rusalka sing again, and now of her pain. The price of expression is silence, and the only release to be found is eventually in death.

Melly Sill is sensitive to these paradoxes, and in her highly inventive (and frequently beautiful) new production for Glyndebourne, she intelligently captures the contrasting worlds of Dvorák’s opera and the patterns of convention which are played out in it. The opening scene finds the Prince bathing in a sea of dancers, the erotic dimensions of water made physically apparent, and Rusalka in turn is spun around the stage in artful arabesques, like a pirouette or floating ballerina. The aquatic location here is figured as sensual, playful and essentially feminine, and the mermaids which eventually descend from the ceiling help to confirm the impression of a space which has no limits. This underwater world is carefully distinguished from the terrestrial reality which Rusalka encounters in the second act, a disorientating locale which is dominated by a rose-covered catwalk around which sunglass-clad guests preen and peruse at the heroine’s wedding-day. This is the harsh environment in which Rusalka is forced to entertain, and from where she is eventually usurped by the glamorous Foreign Princess who wins the Prince’s hand and condemns the mermaid to her submarine hell.



Where Still’s production really scores - and additionally connects with her previous theatrical experience - is in the way it suggests the representative elements of Rusalka’s story, the rite of passage which she has chosen to undergo and the social pressures which play upon her. The beautiful siren who entrances us with her voice must relinquish this in order to enter our own human world, and the suffering she endures becomes a metaphor for the trials of sexual awakening. The witch she turns to for help is here presented as a wizened babushka, whose movements are echoed by underlings behind her, and who thus assert her status as the emblem of tradition. Rusalka is only the latest to go on this journey, and the splitting of her tail - and her subsequent pain - is an obvious symbol for her loss of virginity, and her uncomfortable initiation into the realities of adult life. The wedding-day preparations, with servants applying the accoutrements of femininity, presage the end of her identity and the power and sexual allure embodied by her voice. The corollary of womanhood is silence, and it is only inevitable that she is discarded in favour of a younger model, one whose vocal agility becomes a reiteration of Rusalka’s earlier self. The figure of Vodnik, the ruler of the lake, in this staging becomes a version of the irresponsible father, who unwittingly colludes in the process and can only watch helpless as his daughter is condemned to life as a demon of death.



Still was supported in this conception by an exceptionally strong cast, crowned by the radiant central performance of Ana María Martínez. Her beautiful lyric voice, allied to excellent diction and magnificent breath control, was perfectly suited to the role, and in the famous ‘Song to the Moon’ she soared through its long arching phrases like the world-class diva she is. The natural pathos of her singing and her consummate acting poignantly conveyed the tragedy of Rusalka’s story, such that she managed to captivate our attention even during her long periods of silence. The Prince in turn was dashingly performed by Brandon Jovanovich, whose heroic timbre and movie-star looks made him an obvious choice for the part of fairy-tale hero. Despite evident exhaustion by the evening’s conclusion (and a couple of cracked notes), he executed the role thrillingly and his final duet even managed to evoke some sympathy for this dim-witted character, for whom the seduction of Rusalka is only an extravagant trophy at the end of the hunt.



The largely Slavic supporting cast maintained the high standards of the principals, and all of them seemed to feed off the opportunity to sing in Czech. As Jezibaba, Larissa Diadkova offered sumptuous tone and the authoritative stage-presence which are de rigeur for this malevolent role. Her recitation of the love potion made it clear that Jezibaba is someone for whom torture is just another fact of life. She provided an appropriate contrast to the bumbling Vodnik of Mischa Schelomianski, a jovial buffoon who realises only too late the consequences of his behaviour, and who in one of Still’s many inspirations is seen calling to Rusalka at her wedding from behind a transparent screen. The difficult role of the Foreign Princess was tackled formidably by Tatiana Pavlovskaya, all frosty stares and searing tone, and the smaller parts were confidently taken by an international cast.

The icing on the cake in this production was the glorious playing of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of Czech music specialist Jiri Belohlávek. Recently returned from conducting the opera at the Met, he relished the rich textures of Dvorák’s orchestration, exploring the widest range of dynamics and giving every musical line its own identity and direction. The leitmotifs and folk rhythms were subtly pointed rather than exaggerated and the music seemed to flow effortlessly, like the water through which Rusalka moves. With first-rate support from the Glyndebourne chorus and the usual festival atmosphere, this was a staging not to be missed: a magical evening.