The Canarian coastline, an eastern palace and a magical atmosphere characterise next week's opera event

 

The in-house production of the opera Rusalka that Auditorio de Tenerife is preparing is ready for its premiere next week. On 5, 7 and 9 March at 7:30 p.m. The Symphony Hall will offer this show composed by Antonín Dvořák which over two hundred people are working on, including musicians, singers, craftspeople, and the technical and artistic team.

The soprano Ángeles Blancas, plays the starring role. She believes that "the ending of Rusalka is magical, it leaves you breathless" and she is "endlessly" grateful to the Auditorio de Tenerife for being able to do this Rusalka, an immensely beautiful role, which I last performed in 2007”.

“The passing years have helped me to bring greater depth to it, a broader dimension. Now my voice, mind and body are indeed ready to give the character everything that I feel this role needs, which is genuinely dramatic, with very dark and highly powerful tones, even though we are dealing with a young immortal aquatic nymph" reflects Blancas.

The recent winner of the Opera XXI Best Singer award acknowledges that "Rusalka is one of my favourite operas. The music of Dvořák makes you transcend, forget, leap into another dimension...every phrase has a story, none is in vain, and during the entire opera you surf over a sea of beauty”.

It will be the first time that this opera by the Czech composer has been staged on the island, coinciding with the 120th anniversary of his death. It also marks the debut in Spain of the Brazilian stage director André Heller-Lopes, who proposes a show that ranges between the classic and the contemporary with references to the Canarian coastline, eastern culture and the magic of nature.

This production has been taking shape for months in both Tenerife and other places around the world. As Indian fabrics were needed, part of the stage design was carried out in Italian workshops and several members of the team have travelled from Brazil. Also, there are twenty external companies and professionals linked to the project to carry out different aspects of it, from costume design details to the special effects inherent to audiovisual resources for staging and uncommon prop elements.

Heller-Lopes, the director of the opera, has shared his thoughts on the proposal. He found the idea of changing realities interesting and decided to make it a part of the opera. For instance, in acts one and three, which are usually fantasy worlds, he portrayed them as reality. On the other hand, act two, which takes place in a palace and is designed as a reality,

is a fantasy for the audience. The director also highlighted that the opera's subject matter is relevant to the present times, where there is a lack of communication due to social media, fake news and wars.

Heller-Lopes' team is completed by the set designer Renato Theobaldo, Marcelo Marques' costumes and the lighting designer Gonzalo Córdova. The Brazilian assistant director also undertakes choreographer duties with the dancers from the ballet Centro Internacional de Danza de Tenerife who are participating. The videographer Pedrós created the images that will be screened, and they have a great local component.

The British conductor Paul Daniel is the musical conductor of this show. He will conduct the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra and the Ópera de Tenerife-Intermezzo Choir, directed by Pablo Moras.

In addition to Ángeles Blancas, the cast of Rusalka's three performances includes the bass Vazgen Gazaryan as Vodník, Rusalka's father. The tenor Rodrigo Porras will play the prince with whom Rusalka falls in love. The soprano Magdalena Anna Hofmann plays the role of the foreign princess with whom the prince is infatuated. The witch Jezibaba, who grants Rusalka's wish, will be played by mezzo-soprano Adriana Bignagni Lesca.

The cast is completed by three wood spirits, played by soprano Julietta Aleksanyan and mezzo-sopranos Carmen Artaza and Maria Schellenberg. Baritone Jiří Brückler will take on the roles of a hunter and a forester, while mezzo-soprano Nicole Chirka will be the perceptive kitchen maid.

Rusalka, an opera in three acts, was premiered in 1901. It has a libretto by Jaroslav Kvapil, freely based on the fairy tale Undine (1811) by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and inspired by The Little Mermaid (1837), the work by Hans Christian Andersen, and other European tales. Rusalka is the most popular of the ten operas that Dvořák composed and the one that earned him an international reputation. The opera is in Czech and will have subtitles in Spanish and English.

Rusalka is a water nymph who falls in love with a prince and asks a witch to turn her into a human so that she can be with him. However, this transformation comes at the cost of losing her voice. The ending of the opera is tragic, which sets it apart from other versions of the same story that are often sugar-coated for children.

The tickets are available on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com, at the auditorium's box office or by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 02:00 p.m. There are discounts for students, unemployed and large families, and for those under 30, the price is 5 euros.