Rusalka is an opera with everything: romance and tragedy, comedy and magic.
Star soprano Malin Byström, whose strong title roles include Salome, Jenůfa and Tosca, debuts in the role as Rusalka, the water nymph who longs to be human. American tenor Brandon Jovanovich is her fatal love, the Prince. Hege Høisæter sings the witch Ježibaba and Allison Cook is the foreign Princess. Eivind Gullberg Jensen conducts the Bergen Philharmonic.
Dvořák’s Rusalka is regarded as a national treasure in the Czech Republic, however in Norway this romantic and melodic gem is rarely performed. Gullberg Jensen conducted Rusalka, for the first time in Norway, in Oslo in 2009 for the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet.
– I look very much forward to presenting Rusalka, an opera which has been with me throughout my opera career. Since conducting it in 2009 in the brand new opera house in Oslo it has become one of my personal favourites. It is a joy that this wonderful universe now can be experienced in Bergen, says Eivind Gullberg Jensen
Whilst the music is classic, and the world it inhabits unique, director Àlex Ollé plans to go deeper than just conveying a fairy tale: for him, the fatal love story about the water nymph Rusalka and the prince is an allegory of alienation and being different in the world today.
The famous aria "Song to the Moon" is one of the highlights of the opera.
INFORMATION
18, 20, 22 and 24 March 2023
Grieghallen
Sung in Czech, surtitles in Norwegian
Duration 3 hours, with 30 minutes intermission included
A new production by Bergen National Opera
Presented by Bergen National Opera in collaboration
with Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Edvard Grieg Choirs