Bedrich Smetana deals with love In his earthy opera "The Bartered Bride." It may not be politically correct — the bride is bought, after all — but everything turns out happily in the end. Here's an ...

So do we exchange jolly peasants for glowering apparatchiks? Hardly – this is as entertaining a version of Smetana’s opera as you could wish, but the celebration of Czech nationalism has extra edge ...

Musically, Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride is marvellous, vivid, dance-infused work. In the second performance of the run, conductor Jac van Steen and the Philharmonia Orchestra were achieving ...

Eric Crozier Joan Cross Bed?ich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, the founding work of modern Czech opera, soon exceeded the domestic framework and became a permanent part of the world’s operatic ...

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 ...

A new production of Smetana's irrepressible The Bartered Bride will be presented by Cape Town Opera, in collaboration with the UCT Opera School, at the Baxter from August 17. A riot of song, dance and ...