To add to this week's free laptop viewing, La Monnaie are streaming a recently recorded performance of Rusalka on demand from Tuesday 27 March to Monday 16 April.
Stefan Herheim's 2008 production tells the story from the Water Goblin's perspective. Yes, Rusalka is a ho, but there are no fake pussies, and Stefan Herheim's concept is bolder and clearer than Covent Garden's recent production.
Here's a trailer for its original 2008 outing:
I was going to pull together a list of the Rusalka reviews, but the Royal Opera House have saved me the bother. It's comprehensive too - unlike ENO, the ROH haven't restricted their quotes to the rare lines of praise. Wouldn't it be helpful to see a list like this as part of the regular production information for each show?
You might also care to read the best of the Daily Telegraph's six (yes, six) shamefully drama-milking column fillers - luvvie Michael Simkins on the venerable history of the boo.
Rusalka - Royal Opera House, 27 February 2012 (ROH work premiere)
Despite the Daily Telegraph's best efforts to whip up controversy about its supposedly "anti-semitic" and "terrorist" content, the first night of ENO's The Death of Klinghoffer apparently passed with barely a hint of protest. Audience slowly lulled into torpor would be my guess.
Yet over at the Royal Opera House, Dvorak's Rusalka, an opera about - let's face it - a bunch of fairies in a pond, excited a response more suited to a state visit by Robert Mugabe.
Rusalka - Semperoper Dresden, 17 May 2011
There’s no such thing as an innocent myth - it’s impossible to present Rusalka to a modern, thinking audience as your everyday interspecies romance. In Munich, Martin Kušej recently plunged his fork into the rampant misogyny beneath the opera’s sparkling surface with a dead deer-garnished tale of child abuse.
Stefan Herheim instead chooses to slither around it and examine the consequences of male desire from the guy's perspective. Setting the abused and silenced Rusalka to one side, his story is centred on the Waterman. Clever or cowardly? A few thigh boots, bouncy sex dolls, British bobbies and dancing kids in fish suits later it's easy to forget the question.
Rusalka - Nationaltheater Munich, 23 October 2010
Martin Kušej's Rusalka is no fairy tale, though I wonder if that was made clear beforehand to the parents of the sweet little girls I saw in the foyer before the show, all done up in their party best. Let's just say that two hours of rape, incest and disembowelled animals later, they were nowhere to be seen.
Maybe it should carry a warning sticker, but Kušej's dark fable includes some of the most powerful and original work I've seen for some time. Like many an ambitious retelling, it doesn't quite entirely hang together, but it does reveal a weight and contemporary relevance that no mermaid story could.
Tonight I'll be at the premiere of Martin Kusej's new Rusalka in Munich.
And you can be there too! Sorta. The local radio station, BR-Klassik, is broadcasting the whole thing live. It starts at 7pm CET (6pm UK), with half an hour's chat (in German) beforehand. Use the 'Live hören' button in the top right hand corner of the home page to listen.
It's conducted by Tomas Hanus and the cast includes Kristine Opolais as Rusalka and Klaus Florian Vogt as the Prince.
More production photos from the Bavarian State Opera over the page:
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