What could be more dramatic and moving on an opera stage than someone's voice being taken away and they must be silent? Yet this is what happens to Rusalka, the water fairy who lives with her family in the clear waters of a forest lake. When she falls in love with a prince, she sacrifices her voice and leaves home in the hope of finding true love in a new world. Mermaid characters are well-known from different fairy tales and fables, and their stories are told in both in cheerful and tragic versions. The Czech folklore is not lacking the motif used by Antonín Dvořák in his opera Rusalka, which begins as a fairy tale but soon turns into a heart-breaking tragedy. Dvořák's opera was first performed in Prague in 1901. In Budapest, it was presented in guest performances, first by the Bratislava National Theatre in 1956, then the Prague National Theatre in 1976 – and never since. Thus, it is time for the OPERA to present the most iconic work of Czech opera history in its own spectacular production by János Szikora. What could be more fitting an occasion for it than the Slavic Season?

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