Music / Antonin Dvořák’s Rusalka, Opera Australia. At Sydney Opera House, until August 11. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

Easily the most popular opera ever written by Dvořák, Rusalka was last performed at the Opera House in 2007 with Cheryl Barker in the lead.

So all eyes were on Nicole Car, who had returned from Europe to play the lead in all sessions of this short production, premiered last year by WA Opera as part of the Opera Conference.

The packed opening night audience was not disappointed.

Car, as the tragic water spirit Rusalka and Canberra-trained baritone Warwick Fyfe as The Water King, dominated the performance, their penetrating voices soaring above all others on stage – except, it must be said, those of the magnificent Opera Australia chorus.

But there was no getting away from it, unless you were an expert on Slavic folklore, the story of Rusalka seemed ridiculous.

Jaroslav Kvapil’s libretto draws on Karel Jaromír Erben’s and Božena Němcová’s Slavic fairy tales, with an archetypal story of the spirit who falls in love with a human man, echoing Andersen’s Little Mermaid, although there are significant differences.

In Act I, director Sarah Giles, set designer Charles Davis and costume designer Renée Mulder, set out to create the contrasting universes of underwater world and the above-ground, human world.

From the outset, Mulder’s zombie-like underwater costumes suggested not beauty and life, but a horror movie.

Another figure with echoes of The Little Mermaid was the sorceress Ježibaba, sung with limited force by mezzo-soprano Ashlyn Tymms, who was got up in incongruous sequins, carried a large shopping bag holding plastic stools, and made occasional efforts at comedy.

Act One was mainly an excuse for Car to sing the opera’s one celebrated aria, Song To The Moon, where she is identified with the night-time heavenly body.

In the subsequent lengthy musical narrative, sensitively conducted by Johannes Fritzsch, she pleads to become human and meets the Prince, Austrian-Australian tenor, Gerard Schneider.

After taking one of Ježibaba’s potions she is transformed into a stereotyped Hollywood dolly-bird with long, blonde curls and loses her tongue. It was all very hard to swallow.

But Act II was worth waiting for. The action shifts to the Prince’s palace and a fish-out-of-water scene where Car does a creditable job of showing how hard it is to walk on human feet and heeled shoes. Not a word does she sing in this act, because she has now been rendered dumb.

This part has been seen as almost Wagnerian its lengthy music dialogues, but they bring out the psychological complexities of the characters, including the weaknesses of the fickle Prince, the perceptiveness of the savvy Duchess (Natalie Aroyan), and the complete confusion of the icy-skinned Rusalka.

Ostensibly depicting human vanity, the ugly engagement/wedding party costumes in this act see Rusalka and her rival, the human Duchess, appearing in exactly the same dress – a social no-no which pretty-well seals Rusalka’s fate.

Magically, Fyfe as the Water King appears to spirit her away from the awful humans.

Though terrifying to the mortals, his performance is of such power and depth that the king’s sympathy for ”poor, pale Rusalka” now shines through until the end.

In Act III, Andrew Moran as The Gamekeeper and Sian Sharp as the Kitchen Boy liven the action up with their articulate singing and keen characterisation before the final tragedy ensues.

Schneider as the Prince, hitherto understated vocally, now comes into his own with his convincing rendition of a character walking knowingly to his doom.

He and Car take centre stage as they negotiate the ending of the tragedy, a rather negative conclusion for a romantic plot, but one that did not dim the applause after what was a long night, but one that moved towards a dramatic crescendo.