Praise for RUSALKA from Pittsburgh in the Round: 

“Sellner displayed keen insight into the music that tells the tale of human and supernatural worlds on a multi-layered collision course of emotions….

In the title role, soprano Rachele Schmiege sang with a ringing, powerful voice of clarion tones. She was at her best in the full-throttle passages, but she is quite capable of bringing out the more tender, bewildered and heart-broken aspects of the character as well... Her husband, tenor Stefan Barner, sang the role of the Prince. It was his first appearance on any Pittsburgh stage, and he, too, created an excellent impression as the not especially gallant, somewhat fickle nobleman...Natalie Polito, as the Foreign Princess who toys briefly with the Prince’s emotions...dazzled the eye and delivered the role’s passages with resoundingly solid and effective tones...Benjamin Robinson, the talented lyric tenor familiar to local audiences, provided comic relief as the Gamekeeper, and sang his two brief scenes with his accustomed skill, delivering the almost baritonal music to surprisingly good effect and with the greatest of ease. He was ably partnered by soprano Joanna Latini as his nephew, the Kitchen Boy, an engagingly comic actress with a strong and colorful voice. 

Laurel Semerdjian (Ježibaba) was outstanding in her truly nightmarish conception of the witch... she crouched and slithered about the stage, acting the part with animalistic movements and facial expressions that made her a very believable denizen of some formidably deep, dark netherworld. Her voice is perfectly suited to the demands of the music, with ringing top tones eclipsed only by cavernous, rock-solid lows. She injected a trace of wickedly sly humor into her brief scene with the Gamekeeper and his nephew in the third act, and her spitefully hearty laughter at Rusalka’s plight was a demonic thrill."

- G.Parous, Pittsburgh in the Round