SMETANA, BEDRICH (b. Litomysl, Bohemia, March 2, 1824; d. Prague, May 12, 1884)
Imperial Austrian politics, and the rough and tumble of Prague musical in-fighting all came together in the pivotal year of 1862 to set Smetana on his way to success. That year he got a job conducting a Swedish choral group and began writing his first opera.
Almost 40, he had travelled throughout Europe, failing as a concert pianist, failing as a composer, unable to land jobs in the conservatoires of the continent. He had been reduced to playing piano duets for pay with the deposed Austrian emperor, Ferdinand I.
But, in 1862, he teamed up with librettist Karel Sabina, to produce a work to try to win a prize offered for ‘the first true Czech opera’. It couldn’t have been safely written sooner. Austria had allowed Czech to be openly spoken only the previous year. Smetana was soon taking lessons. His first opera, premièred in 1866, The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, was almost his last. Even though he had overcome the envy of backstabbing hacks to win the prize, those same enemies made sure the work was doomed to obscurity.
The Bartered Bride, usually listed as Smetana’s first opera, almost died a death when the Prussians marched into Prague only seventeen days after its première. Smetana fled the city because The Brandenburgers had shown Prussians in a bad light. However, on his return, he was elected chief conductor of Prague’s Provisional Opera. Many orchestral pieces, a number of choral works and five more operas followed, with the last, Libuse, premièring only three years before his death.
