Speaking at the Hungarian Cultural Centre in Brussels, Peter de Caluwe, the director of the Brussels Opera, said Rusalka had never been performed in the city.
Fischer said he felt he owed it to Dvorak to make the production exceptional. If the audience doesn't particularly like a production of Aida, they won't go home and think it's a bad piece, but if they come away from a piece they are unfamiliar with, such as Rusalka, with a bad impression, they'll think Dvorak was a bad composer, he explained.
"Believe me, if they don't like it, it's my fault," Fischer added.
Stefan Herheim, the production's young Norwegian director, noted that Dvorak said Rusalka was not an opera by a fairy tale. The music of Rusalka is "often sensitive, but always very genuine," he added.
The opera will be sung in Czech.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
