Talk:Rusalka (opera)

Comment
Rusalka is the name of the title character. See a list of the opera's roles. - Nunh-huh 01:42, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
 * So, is Prince is the name of the character too? Mikkalai 01:53, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

And by the way, Vodník in the list of roles, but in the article is translated. into English as Water-Gnome. Rusalka is not translated only becase of tradition. Why don't you believe people who know something you don't know? Mikkalai 02:05, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

[1] Yes, the role is "The Prince". [2] The title role is "Rusalka". [3] I don't believe everyone who says they know something, because such people are often wrong. There's no reason to believe unsupported assertions. [4] I do know what the heroine was named last week when I saw this thing. [5] When have you ever seen a performance of the opera where the heroine is referred to as "Mermaid"? [6] If you cavil at the translation, it belongs in a note towards the end of the article, not in the initial paragraph. [7] Your emendations have also eliminated the link to rusalka. - Nunh-huh 02:24, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
 * OK, I begin see some point in yours. I'll back off a bit. Mikkalai 02:56, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Before a performance of a recording of the opera on radio, an announcer said the libretto is based on the Hans Christian Andersen story "The Little Mermaid" but as far as I can tell from the above discussion, that is not correct. Marlindale (talk) 21:41, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Spoiler warnings for operas
Somehow the edit summary discussion style comes more naturally, but I guess better buckle down and start a talk thread... I'll start it here since you're more likely to see it, and then if we find we've actually decided something meaningful we could move it to the opera talk page or something.

So I guess the crux of this is really your assertion that opera plots do not contain surprises. It's pretty easy for me to disagree here. I know plenty of people who would be surprised at the ending of even the most pop-culture relevant operas, such as Aida, Carmen, (okay maybe not Traviata or Boheme).

Maybe you mean because synopses are always included in the playbill and most neophytes read them ahead of time because they are afraid they won't understand what's going on even if there are supertitles? That's probably true for a good portion of viewers, but not all. --Chinasaur 06:02, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'd started at template talk:spoiler. (See "The cartoonlike, clown-faced, painted like a two-bit whore spoiler warning isn't always appropriate"). Yes, someone, perhaps a six-year-old, may be surprised by a plot turn in an opera. But unlike such breathtaking works of art as "The Sixth Sense", the opera is completely enjoyable in every respect with full knowledge of the plot, and most operagoers have acquainted themselves with the plot before attending. "Spoilers" is Internet slang, not appropriate to opera, barely appropriate to an encyclopedia, and frankly quite galling when slapped like a garish wound on articles about such works as "Romeo and Juliet". We need not tell the readers that we suspect they are so stupid that they [1] don't know the plot of Romeo and Juliet [2] that they would be upset if they find the plot of Romeo and Juliet under the heading "Plot", or that the [3] should be upset if they discover the shocking ending by reading it here. This is an encyclopedia, not a news-group or an internet chat room about the latest Buffy episode. You say you "know plenty of people who would be surprised at the ending of even the most pop-culture relevant operas": do you also know plenty of people who would be surprised that an article in an encyclopedia discusses its ending? No complete article on opera can possibly avoid revealing the plot. = Nunh-huh 08:26, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Rusalka (Dargomyzhsky)
I believe Rusalka (opera) should be a disambiguation page, as there are several opera by this name. See Rusalka (Dargomyzhsky) for another. -- Ghirla -трёп-  15:23, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It's not reader-friendly (or logical) to have Rusalka(opera)=Dvorak and Rusalka(Dargomyzhsky)=Dargomyzhsky ... and someone might one day add an article on Rusalka(Davidov) (the one called just "Rusalka" that he wrote a few years after "Lesta, ili Dneprovskaya rusalka").Wyresider (talk) 12:29, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

The Duchess ??
Who is this mysterious character? The entry in the AmadeusOnline almanacco here indeed has this role, but there is no mention of a Duchess in the synopsis. Neither of the two recordings I own has this role in the cast-list. Help! --Francesco Malipiero (talk) 17:18, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

The poster next to the roles table does not mention this role either. Perhaps a mistake in the AmadeusOnline database? --Francesco Malipiero (talk) 21:52, 9 November 2010 (UTC)


 * No mention of the Duchess in Opera Grove, Viking or Kobbé. According to the roles table and the almanacco, The Duchess was supposedly played by Marta Krásová-Jirák.  I googled her, and found that a) she was born Marta Krásová on 16 March 1901, 15 days before the premiere of the opera  and b) she married the composer Karel Boleslav Jirák : click on the two downwards-pointing chevrons just below the number 4,433 (on the right under the picture) and scroll down for her biography.  Maybe she played the Foreign Princess's baby?  (But the almanacco describes her as dramatic contralto!) --GuillaumeTell 22:28, 10 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I have only just seen this talk section but had already removed the non-existent role - however, there is still a difference between the list here and IMSLP score and the image of the poster for the first performance for the Prince (and full names for a couple of others). Perhaps another editor has access to an in-depth study of the opera to correct this.Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 23:37, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation of name
I thought that in Czech, the accent is fixed on the first syllable. Kostaki mou (talk) 03:37, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * User:Vejvančický uploaded File:Rusalka.ogg and to the article on 6 October 2008; it sounds to me that the name has the stress on the 2nd syllable. I haven't heard it pronounced any other way. Maybe User:filelakeshoe, who changed the stress today (after it has been here since 12 August 2013) can add some insight. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:57, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It sounds like the stress is at the beginning to me, as it always is in Czech (see Czech language and Help:IPA for Czech). The pitch is accented on the first syllable compared to the other two. English speakers often parse longer syllables in Czech as being stressed when in fact they're not, they're just longer (in this case thanks to the /l/ in the coda) – filelakeshoe (t / c) &#xF0F6;  14:07, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Performance statistics
I put some discography statistics for Dvořák operas into the composer article, reverted by Gerda Arendt who said for one thing as I recall, "too much for Composer article." I accept that. Now I propose to put performance statistics for the operas into this article, which is not only I hope the appropriate article, but the statistics are more recent and accessible. In either case the main point I think is that Rusalka is his most popular opera.Marlindale (talk) 19:45, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I found that 'The Spectre's Bride' and 'Vanda' had no WP articles as of today. Whether they should have, is not for me to judge.Marlindale (talk) 20:23, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Vanda (opera) exists, but The Spectre's Bride (or The Specter's Bride) doesn't on the English Wikipedia, nor does Svatební košile anywhere else. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:13, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Source(s) of the Libretto
The article states that the libretto was "based on the fairy tales of Karel Jaromír Erben and Božena Němcová." The New Grove Dictionary of Opera says that the main source was Fouqué’s Undine, with Kvapil also citing Andersen’s Little Mermaid and the French [sic -- I thought it was Flemish?] legend of Melusine. Grove goes on to say that the influence of Erben’s tales seems to have been on the opera's general national feeling more than specific characterization. (Grove does not mention Němcová at all under Rusalka, although it does under Dvorak's The Devil and Kate.)

Faced with the choice, I must believe Grove unless a source of comparable standing is offered to support the "based on Erben and Němcová" statement. (By the way, errors in Grove seem to be very much rarer than in many reference works and other sources.)

Wyresider (talk) 13:01, 23 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I think looking at the information in the Czech Wikipedia article on the opera is helpful to a degree. Softlavender (talk) 08:04, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

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