El transporte internacional

Although the cry, according to Poizat, requires a female soprano voice, which with its high notes carries the best possibility of becoming unintelligible, it is also possible for a tenor’s high notes to reach towards the condition of the cry. The male cry is as rare as a female character’s silent death, or even a parlando death such as Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata.225 _{Poizat’s main example of the male}

cry points to Don Giovanni (a baritone) in Act II as he is dragged into hell: a pure cry that is ‘noted musically on the staff but unsupported by the text’.226

The Prince’s death in Rusalka occurs in the final act, when he asks of Rusalka to free him from the agony brought by her curse. His vocal range stretches from c to c’’. Interestingly, Cheek points out that the Prince’s voice keeps getting higher throughout the opera.227 _{And as his voice gets ever}

higher, the Prince approaches his death. The high C, as expected, comes at the end of the opera, before Rusalka kisses him, a moment before he will die in her arms. Just in terms of the Prince’s vocal

225 _{Cheek, Rusalka, 137} 226 _{Ibid, 137}

trajectory, then, that means that his voice, in its continuous ascent, leads him to his death. Poizat connects high voices with those male characters whose operatic destiny is to die.228 _{This is the case}

with male heroic characters, often tenors; male characters that are destined for sacrifice sometimes have voices even higher than the tenor, such as alto, countertenor, and also the roles that in the past the castrati would have sung.229

In the score, the instruction for the Prince’s high C clearly states ‘nekř_ič_{et’ - ‘do not scream’.}

Example 4.9: The Prince’s cry, Act III, bb. 1276 - 1277

The Prince: Líbej mne, mír mi př_{ej Kiss me, kiss, give me peace}

His final, dying words (Ex. 4.10) have a different description ‘Stále hlasem slabším, jakoby už jen mluvil’ (‘with a voice that is getting weaker, as if he were only speaking’).230

Example 4.10: The Prince’s cry, Act III, bb. 1295 - 1299

The Prince: Polibky tvoje hř_{ích m}ů_{j posv}ě_{tí Your kisses will absolve my sin}

228 _{Poizat, The Angel’s Cry, 136} 229 _{Ibid, 136}

His dying scene, following the high C (Example 4.10), is similar to Violetta’s parlando dying scene. Poizat’s summary of this scene could be applied to the Prince’s final moments Rusalka:

That was not the logic which prevailed; once more the logic of jouissance holds sway with the inevitable upheaval that besets the listener on hearing the extraordinary lyric flight to which the initial words give way, thereby marking the reaffirmed and terrible victory of the cry over language.231

The Prince’s cry is followed by his death in Rusalka’s arms. His cry, unlike those of Ježibaba and Rusalka, leads to death, which is something that an opera fan expects. Rusalka’s cry does not lead to her death, but it leads her to eternal damnation as will-o-the-wisp. She does not die, but becomes a personification of death in the end. The cries of the Prince, Ježibaba and Rusalka in a way create a link between them. In the analysis above, I explain the relation between Rusalka and Ježibaba through the cry. The Prince’s cry (and his death), although not vocally connected, is also a result of Ježibaba’s warning and Rusalka’s sacrifice.

4.3 Conclusion

In my analysis of three different cries by three different characters, my intention was to map the places in which the cries occur, and explore how they might connect and what kind of effect they could have on each other in the opera and eventually on the listener. Not only do they create a link story-wise, as illustrated above, but the cries also depict Rusalka’s metamorphoses. During Ježibaba’s cry, Rusalka is still an unhappy water nymph; Rusalka’s cry reflects on her first metamorphosis; the Prince’s cry and his eventual death reflect on Rusalka’s second metamorphosis. The cries not only lead to/announce the Prince’s death, but they lead the listener to the nature of Rusalka’s character as someone who does not belong in the natural or human world. Therefore, through these cries, even when they are cries of other characters, Rusalka sings to the listeners, constantly reminding us of her tragic fate and the inevitable tragic end.

231 _{Poizat, The Angel’s Cry, 137}

It is through these moments of the cry that we as listeners sympathise and even identify with Rusalka, because we completely rely on her subjective perspective—_{we are drawn to it. In Act I,} during Ježibaba’s cry, Rusalka ignores her words—_{we ignore them as well; during Rusalka’s cry in} Act II, a moment that contains all the build-up agony, we suffer with her and feel her pain. Finally, in Act III, when the Prince begs her to kiss/kill him, we, as the listeners, do not sympathise with the Prince - rather, we sympathise/identify with Rusalka through her suffering.

The following chapter, which focuses on Rusalka as staged, will also explore the experience of the listener/spectator and the connection between the protagonist and the spectators. Moreover, the subject of the cry will be discussed in the following chapter, in order to explain what happens when we experience the cry when it is staged.

Chapter Five: The Stage