Following her admired staging of La traviata, Sarah Giles turned her attention to Dvořák’s fairytale opera about a water sprite who barters away the power of speech to follow her heart and enter the world of humans. Soprano Eleanor Lyons takes on the title role. Rosario La Spina plays her fickle love interest, The Prince, with Warwick Fyfe as her father, and Ashlyn Tymms as the witch, Ježibaba. Limelight wrote, “Giles’ focus is not on the potentially eye-rolling fickleness of the Prince . . . but rather on a character searching for their identity and womanhood,” when the production premiered in Perth in 2024, adding that it was “the best in decades” and giving it five stars when it arrived in Sydney last year. Vladimir Fanshil conducts the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.

Limelight Editor’s Choice

Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, this fairytale opera tells the story of the luminous water nymph Rusalka. Seduced by a Prince, Rusalka abandons her family and everything she knows in the hope of finding true freedom. But all that glitters is not gold. 

Dvořák’s score shimmers with sweeping romance and the many colours of glorious folk music, anchored by the spellbinding and much loved aria ‘Song to the Moon’. 

A breathtaking production of grand scale, by the award-winning team who created La Traviata.