The Two Widows

ABOUT PERFORMANCE

When the festive tableau Libuše was finished, Bedřich Smetana decided to create a new opera based on a French drama he had seen in the Prague Provisional Theatre. It was translated by Emanuel Züngel, who accepted the offer to rewrite the one-act comedy into an operatic libretto whose plot takes place in Czechia instead of France, as requested by the composer. With his Two Widows—and despite being questioned at those times—Smetana opens another unique, musical, and dramatic universe that gives a birth to a conversational salon opera based on the genre of opéra-comique, in which a plot usually takes place in a salon of a country farmhouse and the humour is based on situational comedy. As Václav Holzknecht stipulates in his book Bedřich Smetana, "The Two Widows is a work of immersive creative grace, a relaxed and unrestrained delight in evoking a world of people of refined manners, fine culture, and kindly atmosphere in a flourishing countryside; it is a relief from life's sorrows and an escape from everyday dullness, some kind of summer fairy tale with a good end."

Performed in Czech with English subtitles.

Premieres on 9 and 11 June 2022 at the Antonín Dvořák Theatre

CAST AND CREATIVE

Karolina, vdova - Lada Bočková, Soňa Godarská
Anežka, vdova - Veronika Rovná, Lívia Obručník Vénosová
Ladislav Podhajský - Martin Javorský, Martin Šrejma
Mumlal, hajný - Martin Gurbaľ, František Zahradníček

a další.

Musical preparation - Marek Šedivý
Conductor - Jiří Habart, Marek Šedivý
Stage director - Rocc
Set designer - Rocc
Costume designer - Belinda Radulović
Motion cooperation - Anna Knollová
Chorus master - Jurij Galatenko
Dramaturg - Juraj Bajús