Two sets of parents bring slender characterisations: William Dazeley is a defeated-looking Krušina and husband to Yvonne Howard’s more assertive Ludmila, while John Savournin makes for an anonymous Mícha, but is nicely contrasted by Louise Winter’s feisty Háta. Their combined presence in Act 3 is not dramatically enhanced with the arrival of Kecal for their ensemble number where they simply stand motionless and face the audience without any internal interaction. More rewarding is the partnership found in Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts’ circus Ringmaster and Lara Marie Müller’s sweet-toned Esmeralda, their duet presented with aplomb. A word too for the circus troupe whose dextrous acrobatics and juggling lifts the mood in spectacular fashion. In February 1869 Smetana had the text translated into French, and sent the libretto and score to the Paris Opera with a business proposal for dividing the profits. The management of the Paris Opera did not respond. [21] The opera was first performed outside its native land on 11 January 1871, when Eduard Nápravník, conductor of the Russian Imperial Opera, gave a performance at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. The work attracted mediocre notices from the critics, one of whom compared the work unfavourably to the Offenbach genre. Smetana was hurt by this remark, which he felt downgraded his opera to operetta status, [22] and was convinced that press hostility had been generated by a former adversary, the Russian composer Mily Balakirev. The pair had clashed some years earlier, over the Provisional Theatre's stagings of Glinka's A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Lyudmila. Smetana believed that Balakirev had used the Russian premiere of The Bartered Bride as a means of exacting revenge. [23]

The Bartered Bride premiered at the Provisional Theatre in Prague in 1866 in a two-act version with spoken dialogue. Anon. (n.d.). "Moving Pictures: The European Films of Max Ophüls". University of Wisconsin. Archived from the original on 1 October 2009 . Retrieved 6 July 2009. Conductor Jac van Steen was in charge from the opening ‘vivacissimo’ of the overture. The dynamics and rhythmic intensity of Smetana’s fugal stand-alone concert piece are extreme and the Philharmonia Orchestra rose to the challenge. Van Steen has worked in Prague and knows the opera very well having conducted the last Garsington production. He kept the tempos brisk with an authentic Czech folk lilt when appropriate. The Garsington Opera Chorus was in thrilling voice and provided much of the gentle humour of the piece ‘a woman’s work is never done but men can escape to the pub’ with choreographer Darren Royston’s dance steps adding to the general sense of bonhomie. The chorus twisting and jiving to Smetana’s waltz was an unexpected pleasure. Eichler, Jeremy (2 May 2009). "Smetana's buoyant Bride". The Boston Globe . Retrieved 22 June 2009.

Smetana began revising The Bartered Bride as soon as its first performances were complete. [9] For its first revival, in October 1866, the only significant musical alteration was the addition of a gypsy dance near the start of act 2. For this, Smetana used the music of a dance from The Brandenburgers of Bohemia. [18] When The Bartered Bride returned to the Provisional Theatre in January 1869, this dance was removed, and replaced with a polka. A new scene, with a drinking song for the chorus, was added to act 1, and Mařenka's act 2 aria "Oh what grief!" was extended. [18] As Kecel, David Ireland’s presence is as commanding as his bass-baritone, while John Findon, with his splendid tenor, is genuinely funny as Vašek, though he always ensures that the humour remains in keeping with the character. Whether he is nervous because a woman has merely passed him to go to the ‘ladies’, desperately trying to stomach even just a few gulps of beer or simply sprinting to the (wrong) toilet, it is impossible not to warm to him. With strong support from Yvonne Howard as Ludmila, William Dazeley as Krušina, Isabelle Peters as Esmeralda, Frazer Scott as the Strongman, John Savournin as Mícha and Louise Winter as Háta, this is not so much an evening in which there is nothing not to like, as one in which there is everything to enthuse about. Tyrrell, John. " The Bartered Bride ( Prodaná nevěsta)". In Macy, Laura (ed.). Grove Music Online. (subscription required) Lesueur, François (22 October 2008). "Enfin par la grande porte: La Fiancée vendue". ForumOpera.com . Retrieved 30 November 2015. (in French) In strongly-focused voice, David Ireland presents Kecal as a consummate salesman and a bit of a wide boy. There’s a lively quartet of parents (William Dazeley, Yvonne Howard, John Savournin and Louise Winter) and a tireless circus troupe. Only in Smetana can you go to an opera and enjoy the circus.

Jeník consoles the sad Mařenka, who is supposed to marry Vašek, the son of the rich landowner Mícha, against her will. Jeník vows fidelity to her, but does not tell her that he is Mícha's son from his first marriage and that he went away because of his evil stepmother Agnes years ago. Defiantly Mařenka vows before her parents and the marriage broker Kecal, who has brought about the liaison, that she will not accept anybody as her husband except Jeník. Synopsis [ edit ] Act 1 [ edit ] Open-air performance at the Zoppot Waldoper, near Danzig, July 1912 The men of the village join in a rousing drinking song ("To beer!"), while Jeník and Kecal argue the merits, respectively, of love and money over beer. The women enter, and the whole group joins in dancing a furiant. Away from the jollity the nervous Vašek muses over his forthcoming marriage in a stuttering song ("My-my-my mother said to me"). Mařenka appears, and guesses immediately who he is, but does not reveal her own identity. Pretending to be someone else, she paints a picture of "Mařenka" as a treacherous deceiver. Vašek is easily fooled, and when Mařenka, in her false guise, pretends to woo him ("I know of a maiden fair"), he falls for her charms and swears to give Mařenka up. By the end of 1874, Smetana had become completely deaf but, freed from his theatre duties and the related controversies, he began a period of sustained composition that continued for almost the rest of his life. His contributions to Czech music were increasingly recognised and honoured, but a mental collapse early in 1884 led to his incarceration in an asylum and subsequent death. Smetana's reputation as the founding father of Czech music has endured in his native country, where advocates have raised his status above that of his contemporaries and successors. However, relatively few of Smetana's works are in the international repertory, and most foreign commentators tend to regard Antonín Dvořák as a more significant Czech composer.White, Michael (13 December 1998). "The bride wore an outfit from Habitat". The Independent on Sunday . Retrieved 26 May 2020.

Bedrich Smetana wrote music so clearly rooted in his Czech homeland that it would be easy to define him narrowly, as a musical nationalist. But in fact, his achievement goes far deeper than that. Designer Kevin Knight created delightful Village Hall and pub sets that were full of quirky period detail with lighting designer Howard Hudson’s subtle illuminations and use of the ambient light from the wonderfully transparent Garsington Pavilion giving the show a warm glow. With the exception of Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, and it is hard to picture anyone portraying the Ringmaster in this production so well, all of the principals are different to 2019, but undoubtedly superb. As Mařenka, Pumeza Matshikiza reveals a full yet nuanced soprano that possesses a great flexibility so that all of the required sounds are shaped extremely well. Oliver Johnston, with his strong and vibrant tenor, captures Jeník’s determination to succeed and wry humour in equal measure, while the chemistry between the pair manifests itself from very early on as they even reveal it through the simple act of making sandwiches together. The Bartered Bride is ultimately a comedy, and this production makes the scene in which Mařenka refuses to listen to Jeník’s explanation particularly amusing, but what comes across most clearly is the extent of her grief because she genuinely believes that the man who loves her has sold out. Smetana did not act immediately on this aspiration. The announcement that a Provisional Theatre was to be opened in Prague, as a home for Czech opera and drama pending the building of a permanent National Theatre, influenced his decision to return permanently to his homeland in 1861. [5] He was then spurred to creative action by the announcement of a prize competition, sponsored by the Czech patriot Jan von Harrach, to provide suitable operas for the Provisional Theatre. By 1863 he had written The Brandenburgers in Bohemia to a libretto by the Czech nationalist poet Karel Sabina, whom Smetana had met briefly in 1848. [5] [6] The Brandenburgers, which was awarded the opera prize, was a serious historical drama, but even before its completion Smetana was noting down themes for use in a future comic opera. By this time he had heard the music of Cornelius's Der Barbier, and was ready to try his own hand at the comic genre. [7] Composition history [ edit ] Libretto [ edit ]Holden, Amanda; Kenyon, Nicholas; Walsh, Stephen, eds. (1993). The Viking Opera Guide. London: Viking. p. 989. ISBN 0-670-81292-7. Anon. (20 February 1909). " Bartered Bride at Metropolitan". The New York Times . Retrieved 24 May 2020. (subscription required)