Smetana: The Bartered Bride

Product Information

Big celebrations are promised in the Czech Republic for next year’s bicentenary of Bedrich Smetana, the “father of Czech opera” and composer of other orchestral and chamber music masterpieces. All eight of his operas will be staged as a cycle in Ostrava, but elsewhere we’ll have to make do with the familiar titles: no hardship when it comes The Bartered Bride, a score of sublime musical fecundity. Paul Curran’s 2019 The Bartered Bride, set in late 1950s Britain, makes a welcome return to the Wormsley Estate in Rosie Purdie’s likeable revival. With a new cast, this folksy happy-ever-after rom-com continues to enchant and amuse. Aside from the opera’s attractive music, the universal appeal of the work (premiered in 1866 and first heard in Britain in 1895) depends on local character and small incident rather than on any broadly dramatic element which, with the best will in the world, is fairly minimal – boy loves girl whose parents have arranged for her to marry another, yet all comes right in the end. This production is enlivened more by the colourful and diverting characterisations from within the chorus of villagers (almost a template for Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring) than the principal singers who, good as they are, bring uneven performances with few moments that either startle the ear or moisten the eye. Putting aside exactly who the marriage broker Kecal is in this new scenario, the updating works neatly in Kevin Knight’s designs and the hardworking choreographer Darren Royston’s movement. As the village hall fills up at the start, we see a prissy vicar air-conducting an LP of the overture, one of the most exhilarating in the whole repertoire. The real conductor Jac van Steen may be no Rafael Kubelik, and textures could be more airy, but he draws strong playing from the Philharmonia. The opera was not immediately successful, and was revised and extended in the following four years. In its final version, premiered in 1870, it rapidly gained popularity and eventually became a worldwide success. Until this time, the Czech national opera had only been represented by minor, rarely performed works. This opera, Smetana's second, was part of his quest to create a truly Czech operatic genre. Smetana's musical treatment made considerable use of traditional Bohemian dance forms, such as the polka and furiant, and, although he largely avoided the direct quotation of folksong, he nevertheless created music considered by Czechs to be quintessentially Czech in spirit. The overture, often played as a concert piece independently from the opera, was, unusually, composed before almost any of the other music had been written. 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.

Mařenka – Pumeza Matshikiza, Jeník – Oliver Johnston, Kecal – David Ireland, Vašek – John Findon, Ludmila – Yvonne Howard, Krušina – William Dazeley, Ringmaster – Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, Esmeralda – Isabelle Peters, Mícha – John Savournin, Háta – Louise Winter; Original Director – Paul Curran, Revival Director – Rosie Purdie, Conductor – Jac van Steen, Designer – Kevin Knight, Lighting Designer – Howard Hudson, Choreographer – Darren Royston, Philharmonia Orchestra, Garsington Opera Chorus & Circus Troupe (led by Jennifer Robinson) 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] Although in The Bartered Bride Smetana largely avoided the direct quotation of folksong, the music he composed was considered to be Czech in spirit, meaning that he succeeded in his aim of creating a truly Czech operatic genre. It might therefore seem strange to transfer the action to a 1950s English village, but Paul Curran’s 2019 production for Garsington Opera, now revived by Rosie Purdie, works well for several reasons. In the same way as the original created an image of how the Czech people wished to see themselves, so the first decade of the reign of Elizabeth II, whose image we see hanging in the local pub, conjures ideas for many of the perfect England. The mood of the entire opera is set by the overture, a concert piece in its own right, which Tyrrell describes as "a tour de force of the genre, wonderfully spirited & wonderfully crafted." Tyrrell draws attention to several of its striking features – its extended string fugato, climactic tutti and prominent syncopations. [10] The overture does not contain many of the opera's later themes: biographer Brian Large compares it to Mozart's overtures to The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, in establishing a general mood. [40] It is followed immediately by an extended orchestral prelude, for which Smetana adapted part of his 1849 piano work Wedding Scenes, adding special effects such as bagpipe imitations. [10] [41] Smetana was naturally gifted as a composer, and gave his first public performance at the age of 6. After conventional schooling, he studied music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden, where he set up as a teacher and choirmaster in Gothenburg, and began to write large-scale orchestral works.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.

Jac van Steen, in the pit, seems to have this music in his veins. The orchestral sound has a sort of rustic vigour, but infected with the precision one expects of the Philharmonia orchestra. The ensemble slips were due, I think, to the complexity of the chorus movement. But the choral singing itself is crisp and invigorating. One longs to join in. But I don’t think Smetana would be pleased.

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] Bass-baritone David Ireland was splendid as the oleaginous marriage broker Kecal, puffed up with his own sense of cleverness. His voice was bursting with the marriage broker’s self-confidence with his physicality adding depth to his characterisation. The English wordings are taken from Large 1970, Appendix C: "The Genesis of The Bartered Bride", pp.399–408 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. 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.

In the years since its American premiere The Bartered Bride has entered the repertory of all major opera companies, and is regularly revived worldwide. After several unsuccessful attempts to stage it in France, it was premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1928, sung in French as La Fiancée vendue. [30] [31] In 2008 the opera was added to the repertoire of the Paris Opera, in a new production staged at the Palais Garnier. [32] Listed at 8:00PM on ABV Channel 2 at Google News Archive, a clip also appears on YouTube with poor sound quality The Bartered Bride was not performed abroad again until after Smetana's death in 1884. It was staged by the Prague National Theatre company in Vienna, as part of the Vienna Music and Theatre Exhibition of 1892, where its favourable reception was the beginning of its worldwide popularity among opera audiences. [10] Since Czech was not widely spoken, international performances tended to be in German. The United States premiere took place at the Haymarket Theatre, Chicago, on 20 August 1893. [24] The opera was introduced to the Hamburg State Opera in 1894 by Gustav Mahler, then serving as its director; [25] in 1895 the Coburg Company brought its production to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. [26] In 1897, after his appointment as director of the Vienna State Opera, Mahler brought The Bartered Bride into the Vienna repertory, and conducted regular performances of the work between 1899 and 1907. [25] Mahler's enthusiasm for the work was such that he had incorporated a quote from the overture into the final movement of his First Symphony (1888). [25] When he became Director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1907 he added the opera to its repertory. [25] The New York premiere, again in German, took place on 19 February 1909, and was warmly received. The New York Times commented on the excellence of the staging and musical characterisations, and paid particular tribute to "Mr. Mahler", whose master hand was in evidence throughout. Mahler chose to play the overture between acts 1 and 2, so that latecomers might hear it. [27] Modern revivals [ edit ]Think of John Philip Sousa, for example. At home in America, marches such as "The Stars and Stripes Forever" stir deep, patriotic sentiment. Overseas, those same pieces may seem little more than rousing diversions. 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. Set in a country village and with realistic characters, it tells the story of how, after a late surprise revelation, true love prevails over the combined efforts of ambitious parents and a scheming marriage broker. On World of Opera, host Lisa Simeone presents Smetana's lighthearted masterwork from one of the world's most prestigious stages, at the Palais Garnier, in a production by the Paris Opera. The conductor, Jiøí Bìlohlávek, is among the foremost interpreters of Czech music, and soprano Christiane Oelze stars in the title role.