Rusalka (Dargomyzhsky)

Synopsis

The story unfolds along the Dnieper River. A young woman, abandoned by a prince, takes her own life by drowning, transforming into a rusalka. On the riverbank, near a mill and an oak tree, the miller's daughter Natacha waits for the prince she loves, dismissing her father's cautions about the match. The prince arrives and greets her, but he cannot confess he is about to marry a wealthy noblewoman; instead, he lavishes gifts upon her and her father.

While the peasants sing and dance for the miller, the prince and Natacha retreat into the mill. There, she learns the truth and tells him she is pregnant. Her father tries to comfort her, but she leaps into the river. Later, at a grand wedding celebration for the prince and his new bride, a distant voice—Natacha's—is heard.

The prince sends his equerry to investigate, which makes the princess suspicious; a groan interrupts the festivities. After the wedding, the prince abandons his wife, who shares her anxieties with Olga. A hunter finds the prince wandering the Dnieper's banks and is dispatched to bring him home. At dusk, by the ruined mill, rusalkas sing in the river.

The prince gazes at the water, remembering his love for Natacha. The miller appears, driven mad by grief, and claims his granddaughter, now a rusalka, is looking after him. The prince thinks him insane and flees when the miller refuses his invitation to the castle. Beneath the Dnieper, in the rusalki's underwater palace, the spirits dance; Natacha rules as their queen.

Her daughter brings news of the miller, and Natacha, filled with renewed hope, instructs the girl to lure the prince to her one evening. On the riverbank, the princess and Olga follow the prince and watch him meet the young rusalka. As he follows her, the women try to stop him, but Natacha's voice calls him onward. The miller suddenly bursts from the forest and shoves the prince into the deep water, while the rusalkas laugh and present his body to their queen.