Minnesota Opera closes its season with Antonin Dvorak's musical fairy tale, "Rusalka." Kelly Kaduce can only partially fill the title role's demands. But then, the whole production can only approximate the opera's magic.

Dvorak's opera is based on the archetypal folktale of a water sprite, Rusalka, who out of love for a mortal, longs to become human. The witch Jezibaba makes that happen. But when the Prince she loves is unfaithful, there are tragic results for all.

This was a performance short on fantasy. The most successful element was the physical production. The diaphanous set of Erhard Rom and the projections and lighting of Wendall K. Harrington and Robert Wierzel created an ethereal and mysterious world. The audience was transported into a magical realm, from the underwater world of Rusalka's home to the forest where she meets her Prince.

If only there were half that magic onstage. Director Eric Simonson seemed unable to make his cast, including nymphs, a gnome and a witch, rise above the pedestrian. The haunting, supernatural quality of Dvorak's late Romantic score, rich in its orchestration, was unrealized on the stage.

Most harmed by this approach were Robert Pomakov as Rusalka's father, the water gnome, and Dorothy Byrne as Jezibaba. He had a stentorian bass, but gave little sense of being an unearthly creature. She lacked the dark, resonant mezzo to put across the threatening character and almost seemed to be playing a parody of the witch.

In the second act, when the Prince took Rusalka to his palace, the design team created a different world for the humans, though a poured concrete palace seemed a bit heavy-handed. However, here Simonson's direction was at its most effective, emphasizing Rusalka's isolation, as neither human nor nymph.

Alison Bates brought an appropriately steely soprano to the heartless, manipulative Foreign Princess, Rusalka's rival for the Prince. She enlivened the stage dramatically as Rusalka could not.

Kaduce made a rather pallid and wan Rusalka, unable to convey the character's intense passions. Her voice seemed a size too small for the role and lacked the final degree of warmth and sheen to be completely successful, especially in the Song to the Moon, the score's most justly famous number.

Brandon Jovanovich also had a hard time making much of the character of the Prince, but that was due in large part to the thankless role. He had a warm lyric tenor, though trouble with the Czech language inhibited his innate musicality.

The final confrontation between the two lovers was underpowered and seemed interminable. Part of the fault was Dvorak's, but conductor Robert Wood compounded it, allowing lyricism to trump drama. Much of the music simply dragged.

Two comic scenes were cut, which only made the evening seem longer, eliminating some needed contrast. All in all, Dvorak deserved better.

William Randall Beard is a Minneapolis writer.