Prince, Have Mercy, Listen to Me ...
Arioso of the Princess from the Opera "Ruslaka" f

The miller’s daughter Natasha has a relationship with the Prince. When she becomes pregnant, he leaves her and marries according to his station. Natasha’s father, greedy for money, urges his daughter to be satisfied with the money offered in compensation, but the desperate girl throws herself into the river. The wedding of the Prince is disturbed by singing of Natasha transformed into a nymph whom he cannot forget. The Princess senses the threat, lamenting her husband’s restlessness and tendency to loneliness. He feels irresistibly attracted to the scene of his former love. He thinks he hears female voices at the river bank. He unexpectedly meets miller, who has meanwhile become insane, and who reports of Natasha’s fate in confused hints. In her underwater palace at the bottom of the Dneiper, the river nymph Russalka (Natasha) assigns her twelve-year-old daughter, Russalochka, with the task of luring the Prince to the river. The little nymph meets him, revealing to him that he is her father and that Natasha is waiting for him. While searching for her husband, the Princess witnesses her husband being pushed into the river by the miller and drawn into the depths by the nymphs.