Antonin Dvořák composed his opera Rusalka between April and November 1900. The first performance was given on March 31, 1901, in Prague.
Rusalka is the most performed of Dvořák’s nine operas; in recent years, it has nearly become a repertory piece—the most frequently staged Czech opera next to Smetana’s The Bartered Bride. Rusalka is arguably the finest product of Dvořák’s last years—the time after he returned from the U.S., turned at first from composing symphonies to tone poems, and ended up devoting himself to opera.
Rusalka finds Dvořák at the peak of his powers, and it was a huge success at the Prague premiere in March 1901, finally achieving the popularity in the opera house that he had so long wanted. It was followed only by Armida, which occupied him for seventeen months and was a failure at the premiere, just six weeks before Dvořák died.
Rusalka has always held special appeal for musicians, because of the beauty of its lyric writing, its masterful orchestration, and the symphonic use of Wagnerian leitmotifs. Mahler was particularly interested in the work and wanted to stage it in Vienna in 1902— Dvořák even signed a contract— although in the end it wasn’t performed there until 1910.
Here is Soprano Lucia Popp in “Song to the Moon”:
