XVIIIth. century anonymous print: RusalkaRusalka: Mimi Kavardjikova
Prince: Georgi Velchev
Princess: Pavlina Pavlova
Natasha: Nevena Peneva
Svat: Ivan Vampirov
Miller: Evstati Dimitrov
Friend of Princess: Olga BoyardjievaConductor: Kraysto Marev
Plovdiv Opera, 16 January 1979, sung in Russian with some roles in Bulgarian
| Act I | In their home, Natasha laments the ever-less-frequent visits of the Prince, her lover. Her father, the Miller, advises her on ways to profit from his attentions without seeking the impossible. |
| 11:55 | The Prince arrives to console Natasha with a pearl necklace, but advises her that he is obligated by his position (and induced by the allure of princely pleasures) to give up the liaison and to marry - even after learning that she is pregnant with his child. Natasha hurls herself into the Dnieper. |
| Act II | The guests celebrate the Prince's wedding. |
| 04:05 | The revelry is interrupted by a woman's voice singing of a jilted girl drowning in the river. The marriage broker finds the honey bitter. As the Prince kisses his bride, all hear a woman's moan. |
| Act III | Scene 1 Twelve years later, the royal marriage is not a happy one. The huntsman tells the despairing Princess that the Prince is alone on the bank of the Dnieper; she rushes to join him. |
| 13:20 | Scene 2 At dusk by the river, mermaids cavort until the Prince arrives. He reminisces on happy days there until the Miller arrives, driven mad by his daughter's suicide. He rejects the Prince's invitation to the palace and is prevented from attacking the Prince by the arrival of the royal huntsmen. |
| Act IV | Scene 1 Natasha is by now queen of the underwater world of the Dnieper. Her love is unabated, but now combined with the lust for revenge. She tells her daughter the story of her origin, charging her to surface and lure the Prince to their world. |
| 14:05 | Scene 2 The Prince is drawn to the Dnieper by his memories. The Little Mermaid tells him that she is his daughter. He is about to follow her into the river, held back by the Princess, when the miller arrives and pushes him in - to the arms of the Queen's attendant mermaids who carry him off. |
