Smetana’s Bartered Bride premiered May 30, 1866
Bedrich Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride premiered at the Provisional Theater, Prague on May 30, 1866.
One bride. Two suitors. Set in a busy Czech village bound by tradition and tangled in secrets, The Bartered Bride is a fast-paced comic opera where two young lovers attempt to rewrite the rules. To be together, they need to outwit a meddling matchmaker, sidestep an unwanted marriage contract and survive the arrival of a traveling circus.
https://www.irishnationalopera.ie/whats-on/current-upcoming/bartered-bride
Opera “The Bartered Bride” Centenary
Issued in 1966 by Czechoslovakia
Designer: Karel Svolinský
Engraver: Ladislav Jirka
The Bartered Bride was one of the few Czech language librettos written when Czech operas were primarily sung in German. Due to the suppression of Czechs by the Habsburg Empire in the seventeenth century, the Czech language and Protestant belief were abandoned. Czechs were forced to follow the rest of the Habsburg Empire to be Catholics, and German became the major language used among Czech people, especially in the cities. In 1780, the Czech language was abolished in school, and the language only survived among rural village schools and through a secret reading of the Czech bible. Most Czechs at that time, especially the people from the middle class, were “Germanized.” Czech composers like Smetana, Antonín Dvořák and Leoš Janáček were all educated in German language. The burgeoning of national identity through resuming the use of the Czech language started in the 1860s. The first independent Czech newspaper, Národní listy, was published in 1862. Additionally, in the 1860s, Czech choral societies were becoming popular. These choral societies drew people from different musical experiences together, and they sang music in Czech, which sometimes evoked patriotism in the singing texts. In such an environment, the Czech language in The Bartered Bride contributed to the nationalist movements in Czech lands since the nineteenth century.
https://interlude.hk/smetana-opera-the-bartered-bride/
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