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 ...

“My music is rhythmic because I am Czech… the natural music of the Czechs is rhythm – strong and agile rhythm.” (Martinů). How well the conductor Jac van Steen and the director Paul Curran understood ...

And it has an anti-hero in the person of a youth with a stammer, who gets laughed at and ends up as a circus bear. The fact that the proposed sale is a trick to enable a genuine love match is the sort ...

It’s a sure sign of disaster when the loudest cheer during an opera comes in response to a circus divertissement. Sadly, this was the case in this, the Royal Opera’s second revival of Francesca ...

Conducted by Tomáš Hanus and directed by Dirk Schmeding, the production continues the company’s ongoing run of the opera, with performances scheduled throughout late March. The creative team also ...

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 ...

The opening production of Garsington Opera’s 30th-anniversary season finds the festival at the top of its game. The Philharmonia – one of the world’s leading orchestras – is in the pit, with conductor ...

Nicely timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Sir Peter Moore’s ‘Opera in English’ series comes this outstanding new version of The Bartered Bride. By almost any reckoning, this is the most ...

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The Czech Ballet Symphony II (9/30-6/20) Video: The Company of SPAMALOT Gets Ready for the Kennedy Center ...