PROGRAM NOTES by Phillip Huscher

Antonín Dvořák Born September 8, 1841, Mühlhausen, Bohemia (now Nelahozeves, Czech Republic). Died May 1, 1904, Prague.

Song to the Moon from Rusalka, Op. 114

Dvořák composed his opera Rusalka between April and November 1900. The first performance was given on March 31, 1901, in Prague. The orchestra for Rusalka’s act 1 aria known as the “Song to the Moon” calls for two flutes, two oboes and english horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, one trumpet, timpani, harp, and strings. Performance time is approximately six minutes.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first performance of music from Dvořák’s Rusalka (the “Song to the Moon”) was given at the Ravinia Festival on June 25, 1946, with Jarmila Novotná as soloist and George Szell conducting.

Rusalka is the most performed of Dvořák’s nine operas; in recent years, it has nearly become a repertory piece—the most frequently staged Czech opera next to Smetana’s The Bartered Bride. Rusalka is arguably the finest product of Dvořák’s last years—the time after he returned from the U.S., turned at first from composing symphonies to tone poems, and ended up devoting himself to opera. Rusalka finds Dvořák at the peak of his powers, and it was a huge success at the Prague premiere in March 1901, finally achieving the popularity in the opera house that he had so long wanted. It was followed only by Armida, which occupied him for seventeen months and was a failure at the premiere, just six weeks before Dvořák died.

Rusalka has always held special appeal for musicians, because of the beauty of its lyric writing, its masterful orchestration, and the symphonic use of Wagnerian leitmotifs. Mahler was particularly interested in the work and wanted to stage it in Vienna in 1902— Dvořák even signed a contract— although in the end it wasn’t performed there until 1910. A tragic fairy tale based on Hans Andersen’s Little Mermaid, among other sources, Rusalka revisits the story of a water nymph who takes human form so she can spend time with her prince—a tenor, inevitably—but is forced to return to her lake when he rejects her.

Although Rusalka is more through-composed than any of Dvořák’s previous operas, with less obvious divisions into separable numbers, the “Song to the Moon”—Rusalka’s act 1 aria—has long been a favorite excerpt. It is one of Dvořák’s most glorious creations, with a simple melody rising to a haunting refrain over gently shifting chords.

Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

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These notes appear in galley files and may contain typographical or other errors. Programs subject to change without notice.