Slavonic Festival

Description

Slavonic FestivalAntonín Dvorák (1841 - 1904)Rusalka, Op. 114Bedfich Smetana (1824 - 1884)The Bartered Bride Antonín DvorákScherzo capriccioso, Op. 66 Leos Janácek (1854 - 1928)Moravian Dances Antonín DvorákSlavonic Rhapsody, Op. 45, No.2 Bedrich SmetanaVltava (Moldau) The country formed in 1918 from Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia, established in freedom from Vienna as the republic of Czechoslovakia, had long served the Habsburg Empire as a fertile source of music and musicians. Prague, after all, had been the preferred residence of the earlier Habsburgs, Ferdinand I, Maximilian II and Rudolf I, until, after the defeat of the Czech nobility at the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620, the centre of imperial interest shifted to Vienna. Styles of music, however, were much in accordance with those generally prevalent in the courts of German-speaking countries. It was principally in the second half of the nineteenth century that music of an overtly national flavour appeared, as national consciousness grew. A revival of interest in the Czech language at the end of the eighteenth century had its later parallel in music. It was with Bedrich Smetana that Czech national music came of age. Bohemian by birth, the son of a master-brewer in the service of Count Waldstein, he enjoyed an early education that allowed only intermittent attention to music. He was later able to support himself as a piano teacher in the house of a nobleman in Prague, while taking lessons privately, his aim, as he put it, to be a Liszt in piano technique and a Mozart in composition. He was involved in the abortive nationalist rising of 1848 and took refuge for a time in Sweden, before settling again in Bohemia after the Austrian defeat in 1859 by Napoleon III. His interest now centred on the new Provisional Theatre in Prague, where he became conductor in 1866 after earlier disappointment. His Czech opera The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, completed in 1863, was first performed there on 5th January, 1866. On 30th May the new opera The Bartered Bride followed, without dances in its first version. It was revised in 1869, when, among other additions, the Polka of Act II was included. Further revision followed, with the final version staged at the Provisional Theatre in September, 1870. The Bartered Bride of the title, Marenka, is to marry the son of Tobias Micha, who turns out to be the simpleton Vasek. She already has a handsome lover, Jenik, who barters her away with the marriage-broker, agreeing, for a consideration, that Marenka should marry only a son of Micha. All complications are finally resolved when it turns out that Jenik, always aware of his own true identity, is Micha's long lost son. Vasek, meanwhile, has found his own delight in the circus dancer Esmeralda, and a role for himself playing the part of a performing bear in the circus. The opera opens with a sparkling Overture. The Polka and the Furiant, in the final version of the o