More than anything in the world, the water nymph Rusalka yearns to become human to win the heart of a young prince. But this metamorphosis comes at a price: she will lose her voice and be damned forever should their love story fail.

No reflection of a silver moon in the dried-up lake below. International Opera Awards 2020 nominee Dirk Schmeding stages Antonín Dvořák’s opera Rusalka at Staatstheater Braunschweig far removed from its usual poetic fairytale world. Stuck in the horror vision of a decaying no man’s land, US soprano Julie Adams embodies the title character lost between two worlds.

Part folklore, part opera-ballet, this féerie presents local pagan traditions on the day of the summer solstice and historical events from Cossack times to the more recent 2014 Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity.

After forty years of oblivion and ban by the Soviet authorities, Ukrainian composer Yevhen Stankovych's opera-ballet When the FernBlooms finally premiered at the Lviv National Opera in 2017. Unique in its genre, this impressive performance combines millennia-old folk traditions with an expressive musical language, choral singing and contemporary choreography set against spectacular scenery.