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Opera Review

When It Comes to Nymphs and Princes, Water and Earth Don’t Mix

Renée Fleming and Piotr Beczala in "Rusalka."Credit...Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Dvorak’s “Rusalka,” about a water nymph doomed by her love for a human prince, is a fairy tale. But is it polite and placid, or savage and strange?

There’s disagreement about the answer at the Metropolitan Opera, where a decidedly mixed revival of the work opened on Thursday evening. The conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, a prime candidate to replace James Levine someday as the Met’s music director, offered a clear vote for savage. He led a fierce orchestral performance, bringing out the symphonic sweep in Dvorak’s score and underlining its most cutting details.

Taking the opposite view — that the opera is essentially mild — was the prim prima donna Renée Fleming. The role of Rusalka has long been a trademark of hers; she sang the soaring “Song to the Moon” at the 1988 National Council Auditions Winners Concert, her first appearance on the Met stage. Twenty-six years later, she has returned to it yet again, her status as the most prominent American singer of her generation cemented by the recent news that she will perform the national anthem at the Super Bowl on Feb. 2.

As in Verdi’s “Otello” at the Met in 2012, she paced herself cannily, ending the evening with only a slight hiccup obscuring the final floated high note. But Rusalka, with her most irresistible music coming at the start, showcases fewer of Ms. Fleming’s strengths than did the slower-burning Desdemona. And the role highlights the vocal and dramatic cautiousness that was once masked by the sheer plushness of her soprano.

Her neutral presence was particularly limiting during the second act, when Rusalka’s power of speech has been stolen to make her mortal. Silenced, Ms. Fleming radiated vague discomfort rather than desperation or pain. When her voice is returned in Act III, for every clear, creamy phrase, there was another — often in the middle or low range — that was faint and characterless.

There was no such blandness in Mr. Nézet-Séguin’s conducting. Each act had its own arc and mood, yet he located the ominous door-knock rhythm from the introduction constantly, even in the most seemingly lyrical passages. The playing was superb, from the shining brasses and sharp bite of the woodwinds in the first act, to the eerie shifts of tempo in the prelude to the second, and, in Act III, the slashing double basses and somber focus of the accompaniment to the Kitchen Boy’s story.

This is not to say that the performance was without vocal interest. Piotr Beczala was wonderful as the Prince, his tenor elegant and impassioned. Strained by the end of his extended Act II monologue, the bass-baritone John Relyea, as the Water Gnome, elsewhere summoned strength and steadiness. As the witch Jezibaba, the mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick was steely but without much personality.

Making her Met debut as the enigmatic Foreign Princess, the soprano Emily Magee sounded potent but a bit distant, like a forest fire viewed from far away. Smaller parts were well cast, including Alexey Lavrov (Hunter), Vladimir Chmelo (Gamekeeper) and the vibrant Julie Boulianne (Kitchen Boy).

This drearily picturesque production, with sets by Günther Schneider-Siemssen, was originally directed by Otto Schenk in 1993. After the evocative opening image — a haunting pond amid a rocky forest — it becomes clear that there is no perspective on the characters or plot strong enough to guide the audience through a long, static evening.

Particularly given brilliant, contemporary-minded recent interpretations of “Rusalka” by directors like Stefan Herheim (who made it a twisted carnival) and Martin Kusej (who connected it to recent cases of abuse and captivity), Mr. Schenk’s empty-headed, Magic Kingdom realism feels limp and unambitious. The production is dated not just aesthetically but also in the vision of opera it represents.

“Rusalka” runs through Feb. 15 at the Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center; 212-362-6000, metoperafamily.org.

 “Rusalka” runs through Feb. 15 at the Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center; 212-362-6000, metoperafamily.org.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: When It Comes to Nymphs and Princes, Water and Earth Don’t Mix. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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