Decca Dvorák: Rusalka

Amazon.co.uk Charles Mackerras's lifetime love affair with Czech music makes him an ideal interpreter of Dvorak's most popular opera, an adaptation of themes from Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid into Czech folklore. The watersprite Rusalka falls for a human prince and buys human form from the witch Jezibaba at the price of damnation should she fail to win and keep his heart, and silence while she attempts it; tragedy ensues, not least because the Prince cannot even make up his mind about infidelity. Renee Fleming is glorious in the "Hymn to the Moon" which is the opera's one hit number, equally so in her moments of pain and betrayal and the opera's elegaiac tone; Hoeppner makes the Prince both attractive and, in spite of his betrayal, likeable--this is a fairytale into which psychological accuracy creeps. Franz Hawlata makes the Water Goblin, Rusalka's mentor, as much a victim of the tragic outcome as she is--a mythological being as sad as a Verdi father, and Zajick is a wonderfully monstrous cackling villainess. Mackerras brings out the lyricism, the dance rhythms but also that structural solidness which far too many people assume Dvorak never had. --Roz Kaveney Product description Dvorák: Rusalka.