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 governed by high morals. The Bartered Bride is thus far more humorous than “national”. Nonetheless, its humour is precisely of the type Czechs so love, and hence Smetana’s opera, abounding in irony, scathing, occasionally even cynical, wit, as well as tenderness and simple joie de vivre, has ultimately become “national” in the best sense of the word ...

The Bartered Bride

National Theatre

A gem of Baroque music, one of the oldest still widely performed and popular operas, the first world-class English opera ... These are among the attributes of Henry Purcell’s best-known work, whose genesis is not yet clear, a work that has not survived in its entirety. The opera was probably first performed in 1689 at the dance master and choreographer Josias Priest’s boarding school for young gentlewomen in Chelsea, London. Some scholars have, however, argued that Purcell wrote the piece for the English court, either for James II or, even earlier, for Charles II. Still others claim that the opera bears within a covert allegory, veiled in a mythological story, with the witches symbolising the Catholic Church, highly unpopular in the England of the time ...

Klára Lidová

Events

Upcoming events

Aug 27, 2026 - Jun 27, 2027

The Bartered Bride · Národní divadlo

2 - 13 Dec, 2026

Dido and Aeneas · Národní divadlo

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