The Bartered Bride is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. It was composed during the period 1863 to 1866, and first performed at the Provisional Theatre, Prague, on 30 May 1866. The musical treatment made considerable use of traditional Bohemian dance forms, such as the polka and furiant. It is generally regarded as a major contribution towards the development of Czech music.
About The Bartered Bride in brief
The Bartered Bride is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. It was composed during the period 1863 to 1866, and first performed at the Provisional Theatre, Prague, on 30 May 1866 in a two-act format with spoken dialogue. 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. 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. After a performance at the Vienna Music and Theatre Exhibition of 1892, the opera achieved international recognition, and became the first, and for many years the only, Czech opera in the general repertory. Many of these early international performances were in German, under the title Die verkaufte Braut, and the German-language version continues to be played and recorded. A German film of the opera was made in 1932 by Max Ophüls. It is generally regarded as a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. The 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. 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.
Until this time, the Czech national opera had only been represented by minor, rarely performed works. This opera was part of his quest to create a truly Czech operatic genre, and is considered to be one of the most important works in the history of the Czech musical tradition. The composer was inspired by the large-scale orchestral works championed by Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. He was known in Prague principally as a teacher, pianist and composer of salon pieces. His failure to achieve wider recognition in the Bohemian capital led him to depart in 1856 for Sweden, where he spent the next five years. By 1863 he had written The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, which was awarded the opera prize, a serious historical drama, but even before its completion he was noting themes for use in a future comic opera. By the end of the 1863-1864 period he had produced an untitled untitled version of Der Barbier von Bagdad, which had been assembled by his wife Bettina. Over the following months Sabina was encouraged to develop into a full-length text and provide a Czech translation. According to Brian Large’s biographer, this process was prolonged and untidy; the manuscript shows some amendments and additions in SmetANA’s own hand and some pages written by his own hand, some apparently written by Bettina’s hand.
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