‘Rusalka’ Offers Famous Music, Strong Singing and Dancing

Rusalka. Photo by Mark Frohna.

In some regards, the circumstances are low tech. There are no tickets, just assigned places. Only about 100 persons a performance are seated (quite comfortably) along one side of a large long dance studio with a fake boulder, a real piano and harp on one end of the makeshift stage and a playground swing and a small door at the other end.

Out of that door will pop or stride again and again three singing nymphs and six serpentine dancers. They spring, slide, curl or snake, sometimes clutching the ground, sometimes clutching the walls, all the time with the sounds of opera behind them as we are fancifully told the story of Rusalka, in a production that is a collaboration between Danceworks and Milwaukee Opera Theatre.

But this is the sort of low tech that is the mother of invention. And sometimes hardly at all low tech. The braces of lighting and touches of design by Colin Gawronski are quite efficient. The music for the busy lead voice is top draw in Antonin Dvorak’s most famous opera, inspired by Slavic folk tunes. The program is four slim but well-designed pages that allow those with phones to scan both the cast biographies and the English translation of the poetic Czech lyrics.

The original version usually requires full symphony orchestra, three dozen performers, multiple scenes and three hours to unfold. Here it has been compressed into under two hours and 11 storytelling arias, the instrumental flavor captured alluringly by pianist and music director Ruben Piirainen and harpist Erin Brooker-Miller. While the lyrics are in Czech, the condensed English narrative is comical and sometimes doggerel by Jason Powell, who also performs as the conversationalist and self-congratulatory Moon the opera so frequently sings about.

The tale is a little mermaidish – Rusalka, a water sprite, wants to be human for love of a prince. The prince is decked out for this production like a boathand in sneakers constantly behaving like a jerk while in the full opera he is grandiose. He accepts and then rejects Rosalia, all overseen by the Moon and the witch Jezibaba, who casts spells on Rusalka if she attempts to love a human. Becoming human never ends well in opera, so get ready for some beautiful death throes.

The choreography by Christal Wagner tests the dancers’ skill at tumbling, arabesque lifting, meaningful pointing and winking, and intertwining. They are superb players in the drama as well as lively furniture. Stage director Jill Anna Ponasik with Wagner has structured the dancers into commenting on the story. The singers also have a humanized as well as a fantastical manner.

Dominating the singing is Saira Frank as Rusalka, with a mournful soprano that bursts almost effortlessly into big conclusions and then lowers gently into sadness. She is well matched by the three singing nymphs whose harmony and control can impale us in our seats – Tabetha Steege, Erin Sura and Brennan Martinez. Tim Rebers as the prince is impressive in his pianissimo tenor, standard in his baritone voice but humanly comic in his misadventures. Understudies stepped in valiantly on opening night to cover the witch and the green-haired father.

This is another collaboration between two groups that don’t get much attention, except on the fringes. Mixing grand opera and modern dance doesn’t get much hoopla. It is not everyone’s idea of a good time. But both companies have that mix of disciplined bodies and impish minds that bring converts. For the adventurous it’s a chance to see a distinctive adaptation of a rarely performed opera.

The Danceworks Studio Theatre is entered at 1661 N. Water St., but the entry door is on the Milwaukee River side, with a parking lot that slopes up to Water Street (convenient unless it’s a heavy snow day). Rusalka will have weekend performances through Feb. 23, with tickets at 414-277-8480 or https://danceworksmke.org/concerts/

Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blog here and here.