Promoting Smetana’s Bartered Bride (Prodaná nevěsta) in Paris
| Pages | 79–115 |
|---|---|
| DOI | 10.37520/muscz.2021.003 |
| Keywords | Prodaná nevěsta, The Bartered Bride, Bedřich Smetana, Pauline von Metternich, Victor Maurel, František A. Šubert, Raoul Blondel, Opéra-Comique |
| Citation | VIKTOROVÁ, Kateřina. Promoting Smetana’s Bartered Bride (Prodaná nevěsta) in Paris. Musicalia. Journal of the Czech Museum of Music / Časopis Českého muzea hudby . Prague: National Museum, 2021, 13(1-2), 79–115. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37520/muscz.2021.003. ISSN 1803-7828 (Print), 2533-5634 (Online). Also available from: https://publikace.nm.cz/en/periodicals/musicalia-journal-of-the-czech-museum-of-music-casopis-ceskeho-muzea-hudby/13-1-2/promoting-smetanas-bartered-bride-prodana-nevesta-in-paris |
The Bartered Bride had to take a thorny path to reach the stage in Paris. Sixty years passed between the first attempts while Smetana was still living and the premiere at the Opéra-Comique. There were many people from the spheres of culture and politics involved in promoting the performing of The Bartered Bride in Paris, the most important centre of opera in those days. Foremost among them was Princess Pauline von Metternich, the French baritone Victor Maurel who held the first fragmentary performance of the opera in 1897 in his salon with soloists from the Opéra-Comique, the director of the National Theatre František A. Šubert, the French conductor Charles Lamoureux, the physician and translator Raoul Blondel, the violinist Jan Kubelík, the theatre director Gabriel Astruc, and the wife of the Czechoslovak ambassador in Paris Pavla Osuská. However, the Paris premiere of The Bartered Bride in 1928 did not earn the opera a more permanent place at that city’s theatres.
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