Ionut Pascu as Rigoletto is phenomenal– a wonderful singer and an unusually talented actor able to convey the character. Even without the hunched back, in a suit and a long black coat, he is still a miserable wretch, limping and singing his parts full blown to the audience.
When Rusalka’s father, the water spirit Vodnik (baritone Ionut Pascu) emerges, he rises from that pool. The element of water is massive. The nymphs lay down and roll around Vodnik, unable to rise since, in this mythic logic, they don’t have feet. Pascu is able to sing beautifully, inhabits the role of the grieving father who laments the loss of his daughter to the human realm, and jumps to the pool without missing a beat. Good opera is hard; to sing submerged in water is an Olympian feat.
