(Photo Credit: Gianmarco Bresadola)

“Regietheater” remains a hot topic in the opera world. The main reason for the controversy is because a lot of those new approaches generally need to contort the original material into something completely new to find purpose. Interpretation gives way to transformation, rewriting, and often, reinvention. I stand a bit in the middle on this. On one hand, if a new work is desired, then a new work should be created instead of a director and company exploiting the goods of another for success. However, classic works shouldn’t just be exhibited like artifacts of another era, and given that this is theater, they should still be explored and conversed with on their own terms.

But what does that even mean?

That’s the question I think is at the core of any modern director taking on a new opera and it wasn’t until my recent experience of two repertory staples in Berlin that I started to question my own beliefs on the matter.

First off was a Deutsche Oper Berlin production of “Turandot” that stripped the opera of its exoticism and placed it in the context of a modern dictatorship where the princess herself is but another prop in a performance. The princes who court her are but performers in a tragic play that gets put on for a fearful public on a daily basis. This production, while certainly imperfect (and a bit messy in its final act as the “stage play” moves backstage and no one can seem to crack the code on the Turandot’s character transformation), still managed to explore the heart of the opera, giving it new life and even elevating it in many respects. Turandot’s pain, her anger, her trauma isn’t just aimed at the suitors, but also her dictatorial father who continues putting her out there as a prize to be won. Thus, her decision to murder her father at the very end while the chorus sings a reprise of “Nessun dorma” makes a lot of sense (her inciting Calaf to do the same doesn’t quite work the same and instead ends up being a simplistic “all patriarchs are evil” moralization).

That leads me to “Rusalka” at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. Where “Turandot” maintained its abstraction with modern imagery, director Kornél Mundruczó goes all in on a contemporary world.

The opening act is set in a middle-class apartment divided into three sections – on stage left is a corridor with an entrance, staircase, and a side door leading to Ježibaba’s home; a bathroom dominates the center; and on stage right, an entrance into a kitchen packed with a refrigerator, countertop, and even a Lidl bag. There’s no mistaking that this production is set in the 21st century.

As the opera opens, Rusalka arrives to her apartment. The Prince later enters, drops some groceries, before feeling attracted to Rusalka’s apartment. She feels it to and both end up standing back to back, divided by the “wall” between the corridor and the apartment. He walks up the stairs, she enters the bathtub and hides behind the curtain. Then the three wood sprites appear, either lovers of Vodnik or friends of Rusalka, it’s not fully clear. Vodnik is actually sleeping on the kitchen table when the opera opens, but he blends into the background and you won’t even realize it’s him until he starts to move. The three girls awaken him, flirt, party, and then run away.

Rusalka returns to the forefront via an overhead video projection, her body immersed in the tub in the central bathroom. She is awakened and spends most of her time in that act in the tub or in the bathroom. Ježibaba transforms her into a human by giving her a chic haircut and a new dark dress. Black makeup is added to her lips to essentially turn her into a silent-era movie star, thus justifying her lack of speech. It becomes clearer later why this transformation makes sense, but… this is where Act one fell apart for me.

In the moment, it wasn’t clear what Rusalka’s motivation was. The libretto clearly indicates that she wants to be human to be with the prince, thus leaving her world behind to join another, but what exactly that meant was unclear. Given the imagery on offer, there was no doubt she was human. There was no other indication, from the imagery, that she was a magical being. Ježibaba walks around like a hipster and her last act appearance features a T-shirt that says (FOUL LANGUAGE TRIGGER WARNING) “Fuck you you fucking fuck.” So she’s not much of a magical being either. So what was she offering Rusalka?

The answer doesn’t seem to lie with the prince either. He came in, dressed in black, with a beanie on his head, offering him up as a potential artist of sorts. His dropping his groceries emphasized a bit of clumsiness. Rusalka transitioning from white to black was about the only thing that connected her to the Prince visually. He didn’t tangibly represent another world either aside from the fact that he lives upstairs. But in Act one, we don’t see what’s upstairs, so it is completely irrelevant to making any connection with Rusalka’s desires. And as such, the entire character motivation driving Act one is misshapen and unclear.

Of course, that clarification comes at the top of Act two  when the stage lowers to reveal an upper segment – a penthouse. Suddenly the opera transformed into an exploration of social structures via pop culture. The imagery here couldn’t be clearer for me, invoking BongJoon Ho’s Oscar-winning “Parasite” and its use of staircases and dividing lines to express the social alienation across the different classes. One particularly memorable motif in that film is that the child of the wealthy Park family notes that the Kim family has a particular odor. And at the start of Act two in Mundruczó’s “Rusalka” we get a family gathering that features the Prince, his parents, and what amounts to the gamekeeper, hunter, and kitchen boy transformed into cousins and siblings of the Prince. What’s also clear from everyone’s elegant attire is that the Prince is, literally, the black sheep of the family and Rusalka is looked down upon by them. They give her dirty looks, refuse to look at her or acknowledge her, and, yes, they note a weird odor when she’s around. The Princess is thus an ex-girlfriend; we see a brief break-up between them during the Prince’s Act one entrance.

But it still doesn’t forgive the frustrating confusion that drove Act one. And to be honest, the fix was likely simple. Either, A. give the Prince a bit more visual pedigree in Act one to hint at the class tensions; or B. just come clean and start the opera with an image of the penthouse and descend to the apartment. Of course the reveal at the start of Act two is lost, but at the very least, Act one doesn’t feel confused and thus, frustrate the viewer. Moreover, it generates tension, anticipation, a direction to move toward. It’s the perfect encapsulation of Hitchcock quote about tension vs. suspense (and I know Mundruzcó, an excellent filmmaker as well, knows it). Giving the audience an information beforehand creates anticipation and that alone is longer-lasting than any shock that comes from surprise. Once surprised, the surprise will never have the same impact again. But the tension created by anticipation and the cognitive and emotional work it requires from the audience will remain. Mundruzcó chose surprise over tension and it debilitates his overall production.

Nonetheless, Act two’s recontextualization of Act one plays out as Rusalka idealizing a Hollywood ending that could only truly exist in the past by being accepted into a social class that she is not a part of. And it plays out exactly as you’d expect. She has no voice, literally in this society. She never fits.

It all builds fluidly and beautifully throughout, developing Dvorak’s masterpiece in a unique way that remains true to its original ideas… and then Mundruzcó makes another mistake – he puts his storytelling needs ahead of the opera itself.

Ripping the Structure Apart

And this is where I think we can draw a line. The Deutsche Oper “Turandot” connected Acts one and two, thus creating a clear demarcation structurally and narratively with Act three. Moreover, it allowed the opera to build a strong dramatic tension through two Acts.

Mundruzcó’s “Rusalka” could have done the same and seemed intent on it, but then it cuts the opera in half in the middle of Act two in the middle of Rusalka and Vodkin’s scene. The music just stops. The curtain drops. And when it resumes in the second half, the effect is equally jarring. Why did Mundruzcó do this? My guess is because if he finished Act two, he wouldn’t get the opportunity to show the visual descent that takes place throughout the rest of the opera. Doing it his way, he gets to start at the highest strata of society, before descending for the start of Act three, and then, surprise, descending further for the final scene of the work. Otherwise, having only Act three following the intermission would start in the middle-class apartment and the descent from high to low would be lost.

But ultimately this goes against the carefully constructed dramatic structure of the work itself. The music gets halted in a moment where it shouldn’t. The startup following the intermission is similarly off-putting. But worst of all, Act three, the most ponderous of the three acts, ends up feeling longer as a result, dragging down the momentum of the entire enterprise.

Fortunately there are enough good ideas in the final half to ultimately deliver a memorable performance, but this decision is egregious and a betrayal of the original work.

So what of the second half? After constructing a world of “realism,” Mundruzcó gives us what we came for – fantasy. At some point during the Prince-Princess duet, the prince finds an “eel” of some sort in a painting in his apartment. Smoke blows in and the act ends. It’s a bit of a bizarre shift, but the following scene showcases more “eels” being pulled from everywhere to emphasize an infestation of sorts. I suspect that the tonal shift was also at the heart of the break in the middle of Act two. But again, this goes back to the suspense vs. surprise debate. With sudden magical elements appearing at the end of Act two, the audience is left to ponder them throughout the intermission. Without that time, it just happens, we accept it, and we move on, undercutting the twist. 

More importantly, the opera’s shift puts the spotlight squarely on Rusalka’s transformation and plight. The class tensions remain, but the remainder of the opera illuminates its psychological, emotional, and, especially, physical consequences on her. She’s reintroduced via the overhead video (used sparingly and thus effectively throughout), but her body is immersed in a black substance (yes, the movie reference is intentional). And when she emerges from the tub, she is forced to crawl around, dragging a massive black tail around with her. She’s less mermaid and more worm; “Dune” immediately comes to mind and those familiar with the third and fourth novels in the series will immediately understand. Throughout the act, she is nothing but vermin dragging herself about.

The Prince’s family appears at the apartment to implore help with the depressed prince, and the resulting encounter with Vodkin and Ježibaba features a class warfare of sorts with the “eels” getting thrown around and the wealthy family scrambling out of the space.

Then the stage descends again and we are presented with a basement space with trash linings its walls – the hidden bunker in “Parasite” comes to mind as a direct visual reference. But what’s most imposing here is the dark matter in the center of the stage; it references the cocoons from “Alien.” This is “Rusalka’s” new domain and she’s forced to fidget around the dumpster, a direct emphasis on what happens to the less wealthy when they are neglected by the rich. Even her friends from the beginning are portrayed with seeming facial deformations. The prince arrives and Rusalka’s kiss ends up killing him. But the opera emphasizes the cruelty of the ending quite beautifully. The spoiled rich boy gets what he wants – relief from his suffering – but Rusalka doesn’t. As the opera ends and the Vodnik sings “lidská duše, Bůh tÄ› pomiluj!” all she can do is crawl out of her space. She will remain a vermin of society.

It’s wild, but blends beautifully with the soul of the work, adding crucial and biting incites to the tragedy that unfolds. It isn’t perfect, and that imposed intermission is nothing short of sacrilege, but overall, this is engrossing and powerful.

Vocal Purity Amidst Titanic Forces

In the title role, Christiane Karg proved a solid interpreter. The production is particularly demanding with the soprano forced into tremendous physical dynamism throughout. In early stages, she moves around little, crawling out of the tub and standing around or sitting by the window and staring out of it. But as she “transforms,” her physicality is put to the test. She shifts around the penthouse and runs from the prince’s aggressive advances, never seeming to find comfort anywhere around the space. The ballet is turned into a one-person dance with Karg sensually flitting around the space with a pillow. It was a tour-de-force moment, expressing Rusalka’s repressed desire.

But the real touchstone was her movement as the worm. She crawled around slowly and there were a few moments where Rusalka attempted to lift herself off the floor, only to fall back down. This initial helplessness at the start of Act three gave way to a more slithering and demonic presence in the final act as she wrapped herself around the prince, preparing for the kill. The shift from a timid and fragile woman, to a bitter monster was nothing short of incredible.

Vocally, the soprano displayed a similar evolution, her voice gentle in the early instances. There was a purity to it. While the voice trembled a bit during higher portions of the famed “Song of the moon,” particularly on “měsičku postůj civíli,” the resulting intonation a bit flat, she managed a silky legato that had a strong build over the course of the aria. Her climactic high B flat shone beautifully in the space, setting up more of what was to come.

The vocal purity that would remain throughout the first two acts, offered up a perfect contrast to the booming vocal partners around her, allowing moments of increased desperation to ring more potently.

This was most present in Act three where, following the lengthy aria in which she reflects on the moments lost, Karg’s singing was at its softest. Her voice sobbed as she pulled out her hair. It would build to potent fortes, but always recessed to the softest moments of reflection. But when she confronted Ježibaba one last time and tried to pull herself up off the ground, her soprano boomed into the space with an intensity it hadn’t yet unleashed. As she crashed to the ground, the audience exploded into applause; this usually doesn’t happen in the moment but the combination of the vocal potency and the physical and dramatic struggle on display was too much to overcome. This moment proved to be the end of Rusalka as Karg’s voice took on a jagged edge for the remainder of the performance, her body stiffening as she crawled.

The final duet thus allowed her to express herself with similar bitterness and her offers to the Prince were always characterized with a particular viciousness. The entire passage leading up to the high B flat on “zezkázou” and the ensuing piano line after this climax was all delivered with a bite and edge that, coupled with a sinister smile on her face, added to the emotional tension of the scene.

When Rusalka utters her final lines, acknowledging her loss, Karg returned to the vocal purity of the opening acts, cementing the tragedy at hand.

What was most stunning about Karg’s casting was that she had three massive voices around her. Tenor Brian Jagde is putting together some of his finest performances in recent months. A common criticism of the tenor is that he sings with a limited color palette, favoring vocal power throughout his interpretations. However, with his recent performances, he’s reminding people that artists can and will evolve. I saw him perform “Tosca” alongside Bryn Terfel and Sondra Radvanovsky and he delivered by far his most riveting Cavaradossi to date, particularly with the gentleness he added to “O dolci mani” and “E lucevan le stelle.” And while the role of Prince requires the tenor to spend most of his time projecting over a massive orchestra, Jagde found moments to also infuse the character with vocal tenderness.

There was sturdiness in his initial entrance, but the tenor was more subdued with his volume, matching the Prince’s (in this production) pain after breaking up with his girlfriend. But that passage climaxes in an explosion of desire and passion and Jagde let loose with his stentorian sound, the highs clean and thrilling.

While his initial passages in Act two seemed a bit hesitant (he didn’t seem altogether in synch with the conductor Tomás Hanus), the tenor finished the act particularly strong, going toe to toe with the similarly titanic soprano of Anna Samuil.

Then came the final duet, where Jagde was nothing short of spectacular. Here the tenor painted the vocal line with every color at his disposal. The vocal line shifts from very low D flats to a high C and Jagde, while shaky with the first few D flats, his ascents into the upper limits were seamless, the voice allowed to resonate brilliantly into the space. As the line moved toward that high C, you could feel Jagde’s voice gain strength and the high C was nothing short of riveting, the tenor holding it as long as he could. The ensuing lines emphasized the Prince’s desperation, his pain, his anguish, his desire, the voice as expressive as I have ever heard it. But what cemented it for me were the final moments, where Jagde’s voice was hushed as the tenor sang on his back, a gradual diminuendo setting all the way to pianissimo B double flat, which he floated sublimely. The final few lines were also delicate in their execution with a similarly soft and disembodied G natural. This was easily one of the most emotionally poignant moments on the entire evening.

As the Vodnik, Jongmin Park was sensational. Of all the voices, his was perhaps the most imposing in the space. His interpretation followed along these lines, emphasizing grit and strength throughout, even in his coldness toward Rusalka in their first scene. This remained for most of Act two, until we got a chance to see a completely different side to the Vodnik.

His “Běda! Běda! Ubohá Rusalko bledá” was magical vocal storytelling. The first verse was full-bodied in its vocal delivery, but then he delivered it piannissimo throughout the second verse the most pristine and delicate of sounds. The legato was glorious, the vocal rises and falls seamless. It emphasized that this was the first time we saw the character’s love for Rusalka, his tenderness toward her. It was the literal embodiment of the Vodnik softening toward her. More impactful was that this was the only moment where Park sang with a sustained piano sound in the entire evening, allowing its impact to linger further.

During the “class warfare” scene, he was back to his most aggressive, even bullying some of the other family members. It was violent, but also felt emotionally true given the preceding scenes showcasing Rusalka’s fall and dehumanization. In these scenes, you could also sense the guilt that the Vodnik felt for Rusalka’s fate.

His final lines of the opera, “Woe be to you,” sung from the wings, were thunderous and further emphasized this remorse.

Anna Kissjudit was sensational as Ježibaba, essentially chewing up the scenery both vocally and physically. Her voice was a megaphone and dominated the space every time she uttered any sound whatsoever. Her imposing vocal presence offered a perfect counterpoint to Karg’s interpretation as Rusalka and furthered this sense of her radical personage in this social structure. She played up the sardonic nature of the character, her irreverence toward anyone and everyone on stage, especially throughout the opening scene with Rusalka where you really felt the frailty of Karg’s interpretation when paired with an unsentimental approach from Kissjudit.

When she returned in the final act, she was more admonishing toward Rusalka, but this harsher tone translated particularly well in the final confrontation with the Prince’s family, where she seemed to be having a lot of fun at watching the Vodnik bully the wealthy folks into submission. She punctuated that scene by giving the Vodnik a high five before returning to her home. Again, she had the expletive-laden shirt in this scene and seemed to make the most of it as a prop.

Speaking of bullying into submission, Anna Samuil, as the Foreign Princess, allowed her voice free reign to dominate. Her and Jagde went note for note, creating a unique vocal tension between them that emphasized the struggle for sexual power. Her imposing physicality furthered cemented this portrayal of a woman with no qualms about taking back what she feels is hers. This approach perfectly married the context of the production with her as a member of the ruling class, and Rusalka, her rival, someone “beneath her.”

As the “wood sprites,” Maria Kokareva, Rebecka Wallroth, and Sandra Laagus were unified vocally throughout. The contrast between their excitement and sensuality in the opening scene and their statuesque movements in the final scene was marked in how it further emphasized that Rusalka’s fall was not only an individual one, but also a social one for all of her family members.

Clara Nadeshdin sang with a confident soprano, though she struggled to coordinate with Hanus in some instances throughout Act two. Jaka Mihelač displayed an exquisite and elegant baritone as a member of the Prince’s family.

Hanus had a strong night overall. Despite a few tricky moments with the singers already mentioned, the orchestral balance was pristine. There was elegance in the opening lines of the opera, the initial opening bass phrase was given ample breadth and delivered with a very hushed quality. The opening melody arrived very gently and slowly, allowed to build gradually. It underlined the general approach throughout, with the drama built with a strong sense of pacing. He never overburdened the singers and often provided incredible support at their most vocally exposed moments.

On the whole, the musical component of the evening was nothing short of ideal. Karg’s Rusalka shone amidst a cast of titanic voices and Hanus delivered resplendent orchestral playing throughout. Ultimately, Mundruzcó’s production is a perfect distillation of Regietheater’s greatest shortcomings but also its greatest potential.