THE BATTLE FOR RUSALKA
WHO IS THE THE REAL RUSALKA -- ANNA NETREBKO OR RENEE FLEMING?

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People seem to think that the battle for Rusalka is about two great Divas of our
day, Anna Netrebko and Renee Fleming. In so far as one note and its
interpretation in Dvorak’s aria ‘La Chanson de la Lune’ lies between the Divas,
nothing could be further from the truth. Some people have called it a storm in a
teacup, others have wittily called it the ‘long-and-the-short’ of it; but the
difference in interpretation has a significance beyond its seeming Operatic
milieu. Renee Fleming’ s primal scream for love is a necessary protest that has the
same significance as witchcraft in ancient Europe. Whether the isssue is one of
nymph-hood, womanhood or motherhood, one can be assured that its
anthropological underpinnings have not been understood by anyone, including,
possibly, Ms Fleming herself.

But before any major discussion can begin as to the role of the ‘divine femine’ in
religion-torn world , dominated entirely by male egocentrics, the source of the
divination in Rusalka must be revisited. It should become clear to most people,
one: that the change in Dvorak’s plan for a curt ending is not supported either by
the nature of Rusalka or the antecedents to the final cadence as emotioally
manipulated by him. And two: that however fortuitous it was that Ms Fleming’s
intuitions and emotioanal make-up led her to interpret as she did, the
interpretation resonates anthropologically in the origin, role and destiny of
woman in modern society.

Before such a debate can begin, the mechanics of what has happened should be
made clear. And the rest of this article is devoted to that end.

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1
When Renee Fleming was asked in an inverview what aria she liked to sing most, she
replied instantly:

‘The Song to the Moon, from Rusalka, is my signature piece.”


I don't think people in general understand to what lengths Ms Fleming has gone to make
this aria her ‘signature piece’. At the end of this article , I hope it becomes clear why --
and how -- she made this confident response; for , in truth, Rusalka does bear the
indelible stamp of Ms Fleming’s initials. Not only that but , amongst other things, she
has shamelessly broken all Dvorak's rules and, in the process, has left all other Divas at
an unutterable disadvantage.

No comparison demonstrates these claims more clearly than that obtaining when Ms
Fleming’s very polished interpretation of Rusalka is juxtaposed with that of the coleen
from Krasnodar, Ms Netrebko.

While both Divas, Russian and American, are entirely adorable, I have to confess a
weakness. I am incurably in love with Anna Netrebko’s girlish ways and Russian voice.
Above all else, I want to hear her sing Russalka at her best. As painful as it is to admit it, I
feel at the moment that she has to learn some more discipline: and what’s even worse --
she has to learn it from Ms Fleming! Indeed, she cannot learn it from any other living
Diva. There is no other way! I believe that Anna Netrebko can be the best Rusalka that
(n)ever lived only if she can learn something -- something very precious -- from
Ms.Fleming.

What could one accomplished Diva possibly learn from another? And how are all other
Divas at an unutterable disadvantage? Surely these outrageous statements require an
explanation -- if not an apology!

If one might be permitted to apologise after one has explained, the apology will be better
appreciated. But first one should listen to these two Divas ostensibly singing the same
song.

Let us listen to Anna Netrebko first. She prays to the moon to be sent her prince of love.
‘Silvery moon’, she sings,

shine on us,
shine on us
Moon ahhhhh! Moon,
Shine on us.

These are the hopeful sentiments upon which her final few notes are devoted:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iLqXZHO45o&feature=related

The irritating props aside, this is really a wonderful Rusalka. As ever, her voice is
delicious; it is like dark chocolate. It is heavenly, glorious, full and rich, as a rose is rich.
But there is the suggestion of a serious fault. It occurs in Rusalka’s finish.
Now let us listen to Renee Fleming’s interpretation of this ‘same’ aria:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_lbJ1MaDeo

2
Anyone with an ear to hear will appreciate the colossal difference in the interpretation of
the final cadence. But since the cadence is the climax, it sums up the whole song. Don’t
let anyone tell you that the tail does not wag the dog; without a tail, the dog, the fish and
the Diva are apt to lose their balance. And in a Diva this is fatal.

‘Silvery moon’, she sings,
shine on us,
shine on us
MOON, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Moon,
SHINE ON US!

In Fleming's cadence , we get a totally different ending, not just a longer and more angry
ending, but one that is calculated to rebalance the harmonies that went before. It is more
of a ‘completion’, as understood in musical technology, than an ‘ending’. The climax is
not a matter of chronology as one might well imagine in a Coda. On the contrary, it is a
bit like what the Bible says: ‘that which shall be first shall be last, and that which shall be
last shall be first’.

It is sometimes like that with musical matters also. It is a matter of history - a history that has strong reflexive resonances, so that what has transpired since the sounding of the first tonic is revisitable aurally (like a recapitulation in the clasical sonata) at any time before the the final tonic kicks in. What this means is that every single note, interval, marking, contour and musical event is both transparent and answerable at the final cadential climax. When people say that ‘so-and-so died. His whole life flashed before him before he died’. That is precisely what the cadential climax does in Rusalka
and Ms Fleming has engineered it such that, without Dvorak’s help, everyone has time
enough to ponder with their ears upon the purport of Rusalka’s entire aria.

In this way, and in this sense, all of Fleming’s labours are revisited, relived,
complimented and rewarded; all her previous toil resonates anew as she gathers them
into a most poignant climax, which becomes by right the cornucopia of the aria’s
emotional angst. Anna Netrebko, however, even if blessed with an unbeatable voice and a
definite language advantage, allows her labours in the end to be somewhat squandered.
She lets her work, and the beautiful way she has worked the cadences throughout the
aria, slip like a trifle into a Czech lake. The overall effect is that the technique (and
musicality) of Ms Fleming defeats by far the natural outpourings of Anna Netrebko, as
well as Dvorak’s original invention!

In some ways, of course, it is not Anna's fault. But, then, whose fault is it? How come
these two Divas seem in the final cadence to be ostensibly singing from two identical
scores , yet sound so different? Is it the fault of her minders, trainers, and teachers?

I have said that the two Divas sang ‘ostensibly’ from the same song.That is what we are
led to believe. And in so far as ‘Song to the Moon’, was written by Dvorak in G flat Major
and in ⅜ time, that is the case. But in examining the aria’s final cadence, we have found a
most remarkable contrast between that sung by Netrebko and that sung by Fleming. It is
only when we hear Ms Fleming’s final cadence does it dawn on us that the Divas could be
singing from two totally different scores. In conjoining the climax to the final cadence,
the emotional prayer of the Water-nymph has been one of exponential proportions.
Perhaps it is this disproportion that needs to be explained.

The aria has been so constructed by Dvorak that the final cadence -- indeed, the final
few notes -- are the moment of the aria's climax. To bring both climax and final cadence
together in one moment is no mean feat on Dvorak’s part ; it demonstrates his genius in
these matters.


But this cadential climax is also unusual in another way. In order to enhance its impact,
Dvorak allows the cadence to dawdle close to a recitative base, then with the speed and
assent of the entry to Nessun Dorma, it rockets upwards in sequential momentum to the
high B flat in the Soprano’s register, and only then crashes -- dives, in fact -- to a
sudden sub-aquatic tonic.

It is truly wonderful stuff: this final cadence alone is the female version of Nessun
Dorma!

How, one might ask, is it claimed that the Divas are singing from a different score?
To understand what has happened is not easy to explain.

if we listen to several Divas, all singing the exact same aria -- say, Lucia Popp, Gabriela
Benackova, Milada Subrtova, Anna Netrebko and Renee Fleming -- it will soon become
evident that Ms Fleming -- not Anna Netrebko -- is the odd Diva out. All the rest sing
Dvorak's Rusalka as directed.

Maybe the directions are the problem; for notwithstanding his emotionally powerful leadin
to the cadential climax, Dvorak -- perhaps for other reasons -- only devotes two
thirds of a bar to the high B flat, or , in any event, a short note and a short-circuited
resolution to the climax he has otherwise so meticulously prepared for something more
exciting. It sounds great. But if you listen to any of the Divas -- or as in this case, to
Anna Netrebko -- you will hear this final, somewhat sudden and curt -- almost
chastising -- descent at the end. Indeed, one may go away with the feeling that one has
heard a splendid aria, well sung, but too suddenly ended. And this may have been the
specific aim of Dvorak: one is not always acquainted with Czechoslovakian Waternymphs
as the maestro Dvorak was. In any event, tens of thousands of pilgrims make their way to 'YOU TUBE'
to hear it: and while there at it , to get a gander of Anna Nebtrebko in a bikini. But It is
only when one listens to Renee Fleming’s singular interpretation that one becomes aware
that one is in the presence of a much more revolutionary Rusalka than was hitherto
contemplated.

Anna Netrebko (as Rusalka) has prayed that the Moon might send her princely lover to
her. After her prayers, she submerges herself like a submarine with girlish haste and
almost Christian contrition. As we have seen, Ms Fleming does not come in a bikini;
neither is she in a swimming mood, nor, for that matter, is she likely to be fobbed off by
hunky silhouttes. If anything, she is furious. We all know that like Ms Netrebko, she has
prayed most fervently -- movingly, in fact -- to an indifferent moon; but, now that it is
time for her to take her departure, she refuses to play the role of the fat lady: she simply
will not budge unil she has had her say. She remains on in office un-apologetically
defiant, with anger in her eyes, terror in her tongue and revolution in her heart. Like
Hamlet , she is now Christian or Pagan to whatever end may come, but that end cannot
be indifference!

When and where all the other Divas have gone, Ms Fleming will not go -- not even for
Dvorak! So, when Ms Fleming (as Rusalka) climaxes, there is no scurrying into the safety
of a lake. On the contrary, the earth trembles. When she reaches the high B flat in the
final cadence, far from bailing out modestly, she holds on to the B flat ‘for bare life’ (if
one might use such an apt expression): and she seems to hold on to it forever, which is
maybe twice, three times-- but more likely ten times -- longer than any other Diva
(including Anna Netrebko) : so long, in fact, that the orchestra have practIcally packed it in
and are taking their break, while Ms Fleming, still vibrating ‘in flagrante deliciozo’, sees the aria
through to the last syllable of its emotional obligation : ‘durchgefuert’, as Schonberg
would say!

In this climax, she is the consummate creative artist - and I personally don’t
care too much that she sings Czech with an American Spillvill accent: (which,
incidentally ,was where Dvorak spoke Czech to his Czech friends and ex-pats.)

At first, one doesn’t know what TV programme one is on. It’s like something one would
see on one of David Attenborough’s wild-life programmes; for Ms Fleming turns herself
on stage into something of a raging tigress. In order to protect something primordial , and
'red in tooth and in claw', this modest American Diva now wrings and tears at the tune’s hind-
quarters until the entire aria is purged of its anaemic short breadths.

Amazingly, she holds the aria to its organic high promise. She compels and hurls it to its logical and emotional conclusion. There she stands above the Gods (and the camera man) on Olympus,
vibrating in catharsis a B flat with which she consciously purges all that has preceded it ,
until the emotional charge has travelled cap-a-pe from its first to its last tonic, and has
flowed into its final moonlit syllable. Only then are all issues resolved. Only then can the
orchestra go home to their families. Only then is the aria allowed to close, not so much
with a whimper as with a whimper after an earth-shattering, all-merciful, mother of all
rumbles-in-the-jungle!

Renee Fleming has re-written Dvorak; Dvorak would hardly recognise ‘his’ aria or
understand the emotional re-orientation. In many ways,therefore, Rusalka has become
more Fleming than Dvorak, more American than Czech.

The only question pending is ; has she done the music and Rusalka a
service?

By her prolongation of one well-chosen, emotionally strategic note, she has changed
utterly the whole tone, balance, meaning, emotional discharge and general aesthetic of
the Water-nymph's entire aria. In her person and in her performance a terrible, scorching,
searing beauty is born!

But further, she has transformed Rusalka’ s B flat into an interminable primal scream -- a
demand for human love from a cold world and a cold moon. In true pagan if not in
American style, Ms Fleming commands the moon to provide her with a lover -- predating
the Judeo-Christian opportunity to leap in and claim that Christianity and the Holy Family
would make do (after the sacrament of matrimony) , if the pagan moon didn’t . Of
course, the one remedial belief is as cold and barren as the other, but Ms Fleming’s
impatience and anger, is immediate and modern. Russalka is the life-giving, life-affirming
fertility of Sile-na-gig, or what many have called the ‘divine feminine’. She is
not prepared to live without love -- nor will she put up with the excuses of a male-dominated
monogamy or a cold and distant moon. She is a leprechaun with attitude!

Personally speaking, I can’t imagine any self-respecting Czech Water-nymph complaining
about the new arrangement. It is true that Rusalka has undergone a process that is
otherwise known as transubstantiation, where the nymph changes from an uncrucified
but pining mermaid at the mercy of the moon, to a goddess, a Diva, that commands the
moon and the natural world-order (including the new one!)to do to all women what is no
more than its fertile and servile duty. From a plea and a prayer to a pagan command is
not an easy transition, but Ms Fleming has accomplished it in spades - so much so , in
fact, that she has now made this beautiful pagan hymn unsingable in any other way
except her way.

And I for one am most grateful for it, not least because it is the specific business of the
Diva to protect the Water-nymph, whose entire species is very much in jeopardy of
extinction at the hands of world religions and other male war-mongers.

When I shall hear Anna Netrebko singing Rusalka from Ms Fleming’s hymn-sheet , I will
know that Water-nymphs shall have been saved, that I shall have gone to Heaven, and
that all my prayers as well as my apologies shall have become redundant!

Finally, while it appears of no consequence, one still sneakishly wonders from whom the
camera-man, at the aria’s great climax, got his directions. He must be an extraordinary
Opera-lover. Alternatively, if it was from Ms Fleming’s impressario , then he certainly got
his money's worth. If, however, it came from Ms Fleming herself, then it is apparent that
Ms Fleming's genius is truly formidable !

Seamus Breathnach
www.irish-criminsology.com