Rusalka – review

First seen at the summer festival in 2009, Melly Still's staging of Dvořák's dark fairytale opera takes to the road this autumn on Glyndebourne's tour. Visually, the result leaves a mixed impression. When characters such as the witch Ježibaba and the three wood nymphs are surrounded by multiple copies of themselves, the forest lake where two of the three acts take place begins to look distinctly overpopulated. The inhabitants also include some pretty scary water nymphs in the form of giant singing prawns, and there's altogether too much activity from the mimes initially employed to help Rusalka move her enormous tail around.

Yet when all the pondlife clutter is cleared away and the direction turns to her doomed relationship with her handsome prince, the drama comes into sharper focus. Dvořák makes an unusual and daring move when his main character is kept on stage but silent for most of the second act – Rusalka's inability to speak being the price she pays to become human. The Polish soprano Wioletta Chodowicz may be the least consistent of the principals, but her commitment to the role enables her to rise above some unsteady tone and dodgy tuning.

Altogether more accomplished is Czech tenor Ladislav Elgr, making his UK debut as the Prince, his dynamic vocal attack and healthy top register providing genuine excitement. Tatiana Pavlovskaya queens it as the glamorous Foreign Princess and Anne Mason makes a grandly malevolent Ježibaba, while Mischa Schelomianski returns as a sonorous water sprite, the potency of his baleful utterances partially redeeming an unedifying costume. But it's conductor Jakub Hrůša, the company's departing music director, who steals the show with an account that combines perfect balance with a faultless sense of the score's trajectory.