Rusalka at the Met

(Renee Fleming in the Met's production of Rusalka. Photo: Ken Howard)

Thurs, Mar 12 - This evening was opera in a very grand, very traditional style, the kinds of things the Met was both famous and notorious for in the past. There was enormous, over-elaborate scenery, lush costumes, singers who come center stage and basically park there to sing, plus an opera with a dated, rather silly plot. It's certainly not the kind of bold theatricalism that the Met's new general manager Peter Gelb seems to be going for (with new productions like this seasn's La Sonnambula for Natalie Dessay, or the video projection-filled Damnation du Faust directed by Robert Le Page). Still, the performance was like comfort food, and it was a very enjoyable night.

Certainly the cast had something to do with it: Renee Fleming was reliably wonderful and vocally gorgeous in the title role, particularly in Act 1's "Song to the Moon" and the major Act 3 aria. Alexandrs Antonenko sang the Prince was also in fine form, though the role itself does not garner much sympathy. Stephanie Blythe nearly stole the show as the which Jezibaba; her huge voice filled the house, and she put in fantastic dramatic touches that really added to the character and the performance. Jirí Belohlávek conducted.

Photos by Ken Howard: (1) Renee Fleming and Alexandrs Antonenko
on the set designed by Günther Schneider-Siemssen. (2) Stephanie Blythe as Jezibaba.

I also really liked the set (though I know people have complained that its way too elaborate and clunky). It's big and over the top in the way that only the Met would really do, and completely enveloping in its detail. It looked like a three-dimensional Turner painting in some ways, with the drooping plant life threatening to overtake any of the stage's more human elements.

In Acts 1 and 3, a shimmering lake made of pieces of shiny cloth takes up much of the stage, from which the mythical water characters emerge and descend. The only thing that was possibly too over the top were Jezibaba's furry forest friends that scurry over the set at the end of Act 1 – they were essentially young children costumed like Disney character animals, and it was inconsistent with the world that the rest of the design seemed to create.