Mesmerizing ocean views at the Dolphin Bay resort in Pismo Beach provide the perfect backdrop for Opera San Luis Obispo’s annual Valentine-themed afternoon of song. Join the fun as OperaSLO presents some of Broadway’s best-loved romantic musical numbers. There’s also a sneak preview of their May production of Show Boat.
The performers are active in southern California and include soprano Karen Hogle Brown, mezzo soprano Nandani Maria Sinha, tenor Robert Hoyt, and baritone James Martin Schaefer. Pianist Linda Zoolilian will accompany.
The ticket price includes wine, hors d’oeuvres, coffee, tea and dessert prepared by the award-winning chefs at the Lido. Cost per person is $65, or a table of eight for $520. Call 805-541-5369 or visit Operaslo.org to order tickets.
The MET Live in HD
The Met’s production of Dvorak’s Rusalka will be seen in an encore performance on Sunday, February 23, 2:00pm, at the Performing Arts Center on the Cal Poly campus.
Dvorak composed Rusalka fairly quickly in 1900; it was first performed in 1901. Late in his career he became especially interested in folk legends and fairy tales. He entitled his opera a “Lyric fairy tale in 3 Acts.” And the fairy tale will sound familiar to many opera goers: Rusalka, is a mermaid who longs to become human so she can marry a handsome prince.
If this one-line description of the title character sounds a bit like Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”, there’s a good reason. Andersen’s story, like Rusalka and several other works all stem from a long fairy tale, Undine, by Friedrich de la Motte Fouque. Dvorak’s librettist Jaroslav Kvapil created a variant of the original story for this opera.
In the operatic version, Undine is a water nymph who falls in love with the handsome prince who visits the lake in which she lives. She wants to become human so she can marry the prince and appeals to her father the Water Spirit, who tries to dissuade her. She persists, however, and eventually he relents and sends her, with dire warnings, to the witch Jezibaba.
Jezibaba also issues dire warnings and places two heavy conditions on Undine: once she drinks the magic potion she will be unable to speak, and if her lover rejects her, she will be cursed. She agrees and drinks the potion. When she and the prince meet he is enchanted and wants to marry her. Her inability to speak, however, proves frustrating for both of them, and though the prince is infatuated, his patience begins to wear thin.
At the wedding party a foreign princess throws herself at the prince and attracts his attention. He falls in love with her. Undine sees that the prince has forsaken her, and her father comes to fetch her back to the water world. She consults Jezibaba, who counsels her to kill the prince, who has rejected her and caused her to be under a curse. She recoils at the thought.
Still enchanted, the prince has come looking for Undine. He passionately begs her to kiss him, but she warns him the kiss will be his death. Still he begs; they kiss and he dies in her arms.
This story is open to both literary and psychological interpretation. From the standpoint of 19th century Romanticism, the main problem is the violation of boundaries between the spirit and human worlds. Enchantment and magic potions notwithstanding, the story can be seen as exploring the twin attractions of love and death, a subject which haunts many of Wagner’s operas and music dramas.
Tristan und Isolde, was not, however, the first to portray these attractions. ETA Hoffmann’s opera Undine (1813), concludes with what Hoffmann called “a sweet love-death”, as Undine kisses the knight Huldbrand (the prince in Pvail’s version) and draws him under
the water with her.
Dvorak’s music for Rusalka is some of the most beautiful he ever created. Rusalka’s famous aria “Song to the Moon” from Act I is frequently excerpted for performance on vocal concerts and recitals.
The Met’s production will be led by one of today’s reigning divas, Renee Fleming, in what is considered one of her signature roles. Tenor Piotr Baczala sings the role of the prince.
