Dvorak’s touching opera concerns a water nymph, Rusalka, who longs to feel human emotions. Granted her wish, she quickly learns how love can be followed by betrayal. Her beloved prince desires the reverse journey and, abandoning the trappings of courtly life for the natural world, is dragged down to the watery depths by the nymph’s embrace.

To relocate the story to colonial Haiti may seem arbitrary, but James Conway’s sensitive production for ETO works because the culture in which it is set believes in magic and water spirits.

The other surprise was how well Dvorak’s score could be presented in chamber form: a virtuoso arrangement for 16 instrumentalists, alert to the original by Iain Farrington. Opera companies strapped for cash will come knocking. Donna Bateman and Richard Roberts were satisfactory as Rusalka and the prince, Fiona Kimm formidable as the witch-like Jezibaba. Alex Ingram conducted sympathetically. ETO needs to work harder to draw dramatically credible performances from its cast, but this Rusalka, in tandem with Peter Brook’s La Tragédie de Carmen, deserves to be seen.