AN TONÍN DVOŘ ÁK
RUSALKA
CONTENTS
P.
4
SYNOPSIS P.
6
EVERYTHING ABOUT THE OPERA RUSALKA IS SPECIAL!! JIŘÍ BĚLOHLÁVEK IN AN INTERVIEW P.
8
FAIRY TALES COME FROM THE SOUL AND NEED TO RETURN THERE SVEN-ERIC BECHTOLF IN AN INTERVIEW P.
12
ABOUT BURGEONING SEXUALITY MARIANNE GLITTENBERG IN AN INTERVIEW P.
14
INTUITION AND CRAFT JÜRGEN HOFFMANN IN AN INTERVIEW
P.
16
JAROSLAV KVAPIL, LIBRETTIST OF RUSALKA ANDREAS LÁNG P.
20
WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM RUSALKA? P.
22
EXCERPTS FROM FREUD’S THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS P.
24
THE LIBRETTIST REMEMBERS... JAROSLAV KVAPIL P.
30
RUSALKA’S MAGICAL MUSIC HEINZ IRRGEHER P.
34
CONTEMPTIBLE TREATMENT IN VIENNA ANDREAS LÁNG P.
38
IMPRINT
AN TONÍN DVOŘ ÁK
RUSALKA LYRIC FAIRY TALE in three acts, Op. 114 Libretto JAROSLAV KVAPIL
ORCHESTRA
2 flutes / 1 piccolo 2 oboes / 1 cor anglais 2 clarinets / 1 bass clarinet 2 bassoons / 4 horns 3 trumpets / 3 trombones 1 tuba / percussion / 1 harp violin I / violin II viola / cello double bass 2 horns / harmonium
STAGE ORCHESTRA
AUTOGRAPH
České muzeum hudby Prague
PREMIÈRE
31 MARCH 1901 Prague National Theatre PREMIÈRE AT THE WIENER STAATSOPER 10 APRIL 1987 DURATION
3 H 30 M
INCL. 2 INTERMISSIONS
J A RO S L AV K VA P I L
THE LIBRETTIST REMEMBERS... FROM JAROSLAV KVAPIL’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY WHAT I KNOW In 1899, while on holiday in Andersen’s homeland, on the Danish island of Bornholm I remembered the fairy tale of The Little Mermaid, who was willing to suffer torment for the love of a human, and even when he left her would not take revenge. Using this storyline as a starting point, I wrote the libretto for an opera. Although it was impossible to avoid some of the themes of the then famous Sunken Bell by Gerhart Hauptmann, I believe that the libretto for Rusalka is essentially Czech in character. I wrote the libretto for Rusalka in autumn 1899, without any particular composer in mind. Perhaps this whole thing would have turned into a play, had I not been apprehensive about the similarities to Hauptmann’s tale. Three Czech composers, all good friends of mine, read the libretto, but each of them was occupied with something else, and I did not press the matter. Around Christmas, I heard that Antonín Dvořák was looking for a libretto for a new opera. The director of the Prague National Theatre, Šubert, off ered to act as middle man. And so I told Šubert that I had a libretto. The very next day, we met Dvořák at the director’s office. When his friend, music critic Emanuel Chvála, recommended the libretto of Rusalka to him, Dvořák told me that he was ready to set to work. We already knew each other: Dvořák had given my late wife piano lessons when she was a girl and wanted to make a virtuoso of her. We often met at the coffee house, but if texts to be set to music came up in the conver-
24
THE LIBRETTIST REMEMBERS...
sation, Dvořák would bristle. Several years earlier, I had asked him in a roundabout way if he would like me to write a libretto, but he replied – back then he was always in a bad mood when he had been criti cised – that he wanted to throw anyone who brought him a libretto out on their ear. As a result, it didn’t even occur to me to offer him the libretto for Rusalka since I had more or less written it just for myself. I was all the more surprised that he so eagerly accepted the idea, albeit once his advisers Chvála and Šubert had recommended it to him. This took place shortly after the première of the opera The Devil and Kate. Although the opera was well received, someone had accused Šubert of persuading Dvořák to use a libretto by his nephew Adolf Wenig. Šubert was now set on being able to recommend a libretto by someone else; furthermore, the libretto was by an author whom Šubert had absolutely no reason to promote. Dvořák set to work immediately and composed Rusalka in 1900. During that period, we met often, and Dvořák also wrote to me at length. The subject of the libretto and its form met his expectations more than any of the other libretti he had read, and he set Rusalka to music just as I had written it. He asked for an additional aria only in the first act, namely when Rusalka kneels before the witch. Sometimes he had his artistic moods, such as when he did not completely understand a particular word. In such cases, he would come straight to my flat, even before 7 a.m.; he would get me out of bed and ask me all kinds of questions. Sometimes, however, he would suddenly forget why he had come and would start chatting about everyday matters: how much rent I pay, and that Bendl had bought an expensive home, and that he had already attended early mass or had been to Prague station to study the locomotives, which was his real passion outside music. At some point in May we signed a written agreement. Karel Kadlec, an expert in copyright law, wrote the agreement for Dvořák; at the time, Kadlec was secretary of the National Theatre. The contract was as if etched in stone – in such matters Dvořák was almost fanatically pedantic – and when we had signed the contract, Dvořák said as we shook hands: “With God’s help, we shall succeed!” However, the following morning Mrs Dvořák woke me with the words: “Please come at once
25