Antonin Dvořák’s supremely romantic opera –about a water sprite who longs to find love - is fertile ground for Emma Dante, who returns to La Scala with this magical, achingly beautiful new staging. When Rusalka (Ukrainian soprano Olga Bezsmertna) meets a prince (Dmitry Korchak), she risks her voice and her immortality by asking a witch (Okka von der Damerau) to transform her into a human, only to find out the hard way that true love can come at a terrible price… On the podium in his La Scala debut is Tomáš Hanus, the director of the Welsh National Opera, a specialist in this repertoire who brings out all the drama and lyrical richness of the sophisticated score.