- Lyric Opera/Todd Rosenberg
- Ana María Martíinez, up a tree in Rusalka
More than a century after it was written, Lyric Opera is presenting Chicago with a ravishing premiere of Rusalka, Antonín Dvořák’s 1901 “fairy tale for adults.” The rhapsodic score—performed under the baton of conductor Sir Andrew Davis—has found a perfect match in director Sir David McVicar‘s stunning production.
McVicar puts his Rusalka, soprano Ana María Martínez, through a performance nearly as strenuous physically as it is vocally. She sings while prone on her belly and flat on her back on a tree limb, and has to air-swim through most of the first act, as does bass-baritone Eric Owens, alternately comic and distraught as her father, the three-toed water goblin Vodnik. The entire cast—notably including tenor Brandon Jovanovich as the errant but ardent prince and mezzo-soprano Jill Grove as the deliciously nasty witch—is first-rate.
