Many Dvořák admirers joined DAHA and Czech Center New York on Wednesday, February 15th for a lecture by musicologist Michael Beckerman exploring Rusalka’s deeper meanings, presented as part of the month-long celebration of Antonín Dvořák's opera Rusalka in New York. Read more about this month long festival here.

Characterized as a "fairy-tale" opera, Dvořák’s Rusalka is indeed at least in part based on the "Little Mermaid" story. But the opera, both in its use of recurring motives and in its psychological depth aspires to the dramatic power of Wagner's Tristan rather than the picturesque and contained world of Hans Christian Andersen. Using piano, music clips, and score images, Professor Beckerman discussed the themes of longing, wish for death, and search for a kind of ultimate love that pervade the opera and the final scene, which rises to the highest level of tragedy.

You can enjoy a replay of this lecture on YouTube.