Rusalka at Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House

Under the surface, Rusalka wants. She wants light. She wants love. She wants life outside of her home in the depths. The water nymph gives up everything to get it. But Rusalka can’t imagine just how much she’s giving up … or if the soul she seeks is worth the sacrifice.

Nicole Car has a once-in-a-generation voice, and is one of the most successful sopranos to emerge from Australia in decades. Don’t miss her return after several years on the world stage to make her role debut as Rusalka.

Dvoák’s rich, Romantic opera draws you into a dream-like world of light and shadow. The music shimmers with intricate harmonies and sweeping melodies, including the famous ‘Song to the Moon’. The lush orchestration paints a vivid atmosphere where magic and malice meet.

Before Disney took Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Little Mermaid into the lives of children everywhere, many cultures told tales of water nymphs who long to live on the surface. Dvoák’s opera fuses the fairy tale with Slavic stories of dangerous water nymphs.

Director Sarah Giles follows up her critically acclaimed La Traviata with a new production of Dvoák’s melodic opera. She creates a mesmerising, dangerous world, where Rusalka longs to escape from a place that doesn’t feel like home. Ethereal costumes by Renée Mulder and an evocative set by Charles Davis glimmer with magic and mystery.

The cast is rounded out by Austrian-Australian tenor Gerard Schneider, Warwick Fyfe, Ashlyn Tymms, and Natalie Aroyan.