REVIEW: Rusalka - Opera Queensland, QPAC

Rusalka

Presented by: Opera Queensland, with the Opera Queensland Chorus and Queensland Symphony Orchestra

Venue: Glasshouse Theatre, QPAC

Date Attended: 25 June 2026

Composer: Antonín Dvořák

Conductor: Vladimir Fanshil

Director: Sarah Giles

Set Designer: Charles Davis

Costume Designer: Renée Mulder

Lighting Designer: Paul Jackson

Video Designer: David Bergman

Movement and Intimacy Coordinator: Lyndall Grant

Chorus Master: Narelle French

Photography: Steph Do Rozario / Murray Summerville

“Be carefree, just like you were before the world deceived you.”

There is no brightly coloured underwater kingdom here. No cheerful fish sidekicks, no crustacean percussion, and certainly no guarantee that changing your entire body for a man will work out well. Opera Queensland’s Rusalka instead opens beneath a vast ceiling of lily pads. Pale figures sit scattered across a black, reflective lakebed. It is bleak as hell. It is also gorgeous.

Antonín Dvořák’s opera follows Rusalka, a water nymph who has fallen in love with a human prince and longs to leave her underwater existence. Sound familiar? She begs her father, Vodník, to let her become human, but when he refuses, she turns to the witch Ježibaba. Her wish is granted, but she will be mute among humans, and returning home after rejection will bring terrible consequences for both her and the Prince. Director Sarah Giles frames the story as a dream, a nightmare, and a cautionary fairytale. Rusalka escapes one restrictive world only to discover ours. It is essentially The Little Mermaid with considerably more supernatural damage.

Charles Davis’ set is sculptural and deliberately unfamiliar. Scrims and backdrops shift between reflection and transparency, opening layers above, behind and beneath the performers. Suspended strands suggest falling droplets or tendrils, while lily pads float overhead like the underside of another world. David Bergman’s video design deepens the illusion. Early in Act I, a figure swims through the lake across the scrim as Rusalka reaches towards him. Later, ripples and drifting wisps make it difficult to tell where the physical set ends and the projection begins. The opening moves slowly, but the Queensland Symphony Orchestra draws us in before anyone sings. Under Vladimir Fanshil’s direction, the score shimmers, sighs, and occasionally surges with frightening force.

At the centre of it all is Eleanor Lyons in an extraordinary performance. Rusalka is a punishing soprano role, requiring control, dramatic power and considerable stamina. Lyons meets every demand with a radiant tone. Her Act I scenes establish Rusalka as sincere and dangerously idealistic. She begs Vodník to let her leave the lake and, when Daddy says no, she naturally goes to the local sparkly witch instead. Her famous “Song to the Moon” is a plea for escape. Lyons lets the melody float through the theatre beautifully, while Rusalka prepares to abandon everything for a man she doesn't know (ew).

The transformation into human form happens onstage through a slick quick change. Rusalka gains hair, glamour and a completely unfamiliar pair of legs. Watching her learn to use them is delightful. Lyons waddles like a toddler, stumbles on stairs and is baffled by human shoes. The physical comedy makes her vulnerable and immediately endearing. By Act II, she is serving Barbie bombshell while having absolutely no idea what is happening.

Renée Mulder’s gold-and-black gown gives her enormous sleeves and a striking silhouette, while making movement look almost impossible. She appears spectacular and profoundly uncomfortable. Silent, pale and completely out of her depth (pun intended), Rusalka clings to the Prince, tries to charm him without words and grows increasingly jealous as the Duchess enters his orbit. Her muteness becomes a prison. It is tough having a human soul, isn’t it?

Rosario La Spina gives the Prince a commanding vocal presence. He is drawn to Rusalka’s beauty and strangeness, then becomes frustrated once that strangeness inconveniences him. Then his ex arrives at his engagement party! What a hag. Eva Kong’s Duchess is confident, expressive and completely at home within the court. Kong commands attention immediately, bringing vocal brilliance and sharp dramatic instincts to a role that needs very little time to destabilise the engagement.

The entire human court looks as though it has wandered in from the Capitol in The Hunger Games. Mulder’s costumes are magnificently excessive, with compressed fabrics, exaggerated proportions and rigid silhouettes. The chorus wears masks and stylised wigs that create an eerie sameness beneath all that fashion. Their long tableaux are particularly effective, with coordinated hands and frozen expressions making the court seem like one watchful social organism.

The feast is also one of the best fake stage feasts I have seen. There is abundance everywhere, yet Rusalka remains completely isolated within it. Despite their visual differences, the two worlds are not so far apart. The underwater creatures are bald and dressed in similar flowing garments. The humans exaggerate individuality through fashion, but hide behind masks and strict social behaviour.

Ashlyn Tymms has an excellent time as Ježibaba, and so do we. Ježibaba is sassy, sparkly and dngaf. Her trolley is loaded with human rubbish “treasure”, probably gathered from supermarkets, op shops and lost-property departments across Brisbane. At one point, she casually eats a banana? Tymms brings rich vocal colour and excellent comic timing, while keeping the danger beneath Ježibaba’s humour.

Maia Andrews, Eleanor Greenwood and Shikara Ringdahl are equally memorable as the Wood Sprites. Their bark-like bodies, branch crowns and enormous trailing arms transform them into strange sculptures. They resemble haunted woodland couture versions of wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube creatures. Their voices are quick and mischievous, while their movement brings welcome playfulness to the production. Act III becomes particularly strange when the trio launch into what I can only describe as a supernatural ego trip, accompanied by playful flute.

Warwick Fyfe gives Vodník considerable authority while keeping his grief close to the surface. He warns Rusalka about humanity, then has to watch every one of his fears come true. His anger towards the Prince comes from helplessness and heartbreak. Fyfe’s scenes with Lyons are among the strongest of the evening, particularly when Rusalka regains her voice and laments her regret as the orchestra rises beneath them with enormous force.

Act III transforms the stage again. Rusalka returns veiled, pale and almost spectral. Her makeup leaves her looking neither alive nor dead, while lily pads and layered video surround her in a watery limbo. Elevated beneath a narrow shaft of white light, she resembles a drowned saint or an apparition from her own funeral. She no longer belongs above or below the surface. Lyons spends long passages almost completely still, looking rightfully tortured. It is a powerful image, although I did occasionally wonder how bored she must have become standing up there. Rusalka began the opera desperate for movement and change, only to end trapped inside her own transformation.

Paul Jackson’s lighting frequently isolates performers beneath narrow silver spotlights, repeatedly drawing our attention back to Rusalka’s loneliness. Lyndall Grant’s movement and intimacy work is equally important as Rusalka shifts from fluidity underwater to comic awkwardness on land, then rigidity at court and near-total stillness. Even the surtitles become part of the production design, moving above different characters as the blocking changes. It is a clever solution that keeps the audience’s attention near the action. The two intervals are understandable given the scale of the set changes, and necessary so everyone involved can rehydrate before returning for further emotional destruction.

There is no single moral in Rusalka, and the production does not force one upon us. It can be read as a warning against changing yourself for love, but Rusalka is also brave enough to admit that her world makes her unhappy. She wants freedom and a life beyond what she has been given. Her choices are catastrophic, but they are still hers. Opera Queensland’s Rusalka is a visual and musical triumph. The orchestra is glorious, the voices are magnificent, and the design turns the Glasshouse Theatre into a beautiful mythical world.