Sharpenicity

Dvorak’s masterpiece lyric opera is about a water nymph who wants to transform herself into a human being to know the love of a prince. That formula has been used for myths of a Slavic   water-sprite, Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid , Jean Giraudoux’s Ondine , Disney’s Ariel and other fairy tale heroines who have attempted brave transformation into human forms, only to be dashed and doomed into eternal disappointment.     Rusalka  is a wave in the water, a beam from the moon, the ultimate in romantic fantasy,  a being that truly puts her whole self into a love relationship.  Rusalka (Kristine Opolais)  dwells in the Met’s opera Mary Zimmerman’s production in a lush fantasy world, with her Water Gnome father (Eric Owens) and her dancing sisters - green garbed sprites who sprint about  along watery ponds in a deep dark dense forest.  She meets the prince  (Brandon Jovanovich) while he was trying to shoot a white doe in the forest and makes a Faustian bargain—t