Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém (Song to the Moon) (Rusalka)

Jaroslav Kvapil wrote the libretto with no composer in mind, drawing on Undine, Andersen's mermaid and Czech folk sources; several composers turned it down before Dvořák, who set it in seven months in 1900. The National Theatre in Prague gave the premiere on 31 March 1901, and it became the greatest success of his stage career. Abroad the opera waited decades: the language, and a reputation as a fairy tale for children, kept it out of the major houses until the second half of the twentieth century. The water spirit's address to the moon is its best-known page.