Smetana and the librettist Karel Sabina masterfully mocked all those who expected the “national opera” to be an idyllic picture of the Czech countryside, with its inhabitants being virtuous and ...

And it has an anti-hero in the person of a youth with a stammer, who gets laughed at and ends up as a circus bear. The fact that the proposed sale is a trick to enable a genuine love match is the sort ...

“My music is rhythmic because I am Czech… the natural music of the Czechs is rhythm – strong and agile rhythm.” (Martinů). How well the conductor Jac van Steen and the director Paul Curran understood ...

Musically, Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride is marvellous, vivid, dance-infused work. In the second performance of the run, conductor Jac van Steen and the Philharmonia Orchestra were achieving ...

Conducted by Tomáš Hanus and directed by Dirk Schmeding, the production continues the company’s ongoing run of the opera, with performances scheduled throughout late March. The creative team also ...

It’s a sure sign of disaster when the loudest cheer during an opera comes in response to a circus divertissement. Sadly, this was the case in this, the Royal Opera’s second revival of Francesca ...

Nicely timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Sir Peter Moore’s ‘Opera in English’ series comes this outstanding new version of The Bartered Bride. By almost any reckoning, this is the most ...

So do we exchange jolly peasants for glowering apparatchiks? Hardly – this is as entertaining a version of Smetana’s opera as you could wish, but the celebration of Czech nationalism has extra edge ...

The Czech Center Museum of Houston will present Bedrich Smetana’s opera, The Bartered Bride, one of the most influential pieces of Czech musical history. Often defined by its quintessential Czech ...

Bedrich Smetana deals with love In his earthy opera "The Bartered Bride." It may not be politically correct — the bride is bought, after all — but everything turns out happily in the end. Here's an ...

Who would have thought Czech was the language of love? Then again, who would have thought a comedy about a bride exchange would be a national opera? The new romantic comedy, The Bartered Bride, sung ...