TORONTO.

Having witnessed only one staging at the Germany's newest opera house--a surprisingly traditional Tosca--I wasn't sure what to expect when the Canadian Opera Company imported Theater Erfurt's production of Dvorak's Rusalka for a Jan./Feb. commemoration of what would have been the 100th birthday of the COC's Czech-born co-founder, Nicholas Goldschmidt. Compounding the uncertainty was the presence of Russian director Dmitri Bertman, whose From the House of the Dead for the company left vivid memories, but whose La traviata remains one of the loonier episodes in Canadian opera history.

Bertman did not disappoint those who expected iconoclasm, giving Dvorak's morality tale of the danger of pursuing dreams a darker than usual edge, turning the witch Jezibaba (in the powerful vocal presence of mezzo Irina Mishura) into a Mephistophelian schemer with little red horns and terrific legs.

He did not, however, succeed in evading the endemic difficulty of giving concrete stage life to a particularly elusive fairy tale involving the implausible yet tragic amatory encounter between a water nymph and a mortal prince. Yes, we had water on stage. We even had a revolving stage and dying bugs. But all the Erfurt theatrical magic conjured up with the aid of Hartmut Schorghofers sets and Corinna Cronies costumes could not overcome the physical intractability of Dvorak's Undine-inspired libretto.

The music was more easily served, with debuting American conductor John Keenan in full command of the scores gorgeous lyrical sweep and drawing a passionate response from soloists, chorus and orchestra.

In American soprano Julie Makerov he had a vocally full-bodied Rusalka and in Canadian tenor Michael Schade a forceful, bright-toned prince. That dependable character singer, Richard Paul Fink, was in typically fine form as the water gnome, Vodick, with Joni Hereon also in top form as the Foreign Princess, Michael Barrett and Betty Allison taking an unusual turn as the Gamekeeper and Turnspit, and Teija Kasahara, Lisa DiMaria and Erin Fisher making a handsome trio of Wood Nymphs. Listening to them all wasn't the problem. The problem was an opera for the imagination once again resisting transformation into physical reality.