Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | The Bartered Bride (Prodaná nevěsta)

Paul Curran’s 2019 production is revived with some flair by Rosie Purdie, with a fine cast led by Pumeza Matshikiza.

Magdalena Švecová's staging for Prague National Theatre wins hearts with ensemble work full of verve and costumes that are pure eye candy.

Natalya Romaniw is a natural as our maligned heroine: Paul Curran creates staging of bewildering comic complexity and pulls it off with panache.

After a popular first half including a fine Grieg Piano Concerto, the Belgrade Philharmonic gave a showpiece performance of Schoenberg's early symphonic poem. 

What brought real distinction and authenticity to the evening, as so often in this house, was the outstanding playing of the Staatskapelle conducted by Tomaš Netopil. From the start of the overture with its rapidly scurrying fugato for strings and pointed phrasing from the woodwind one felt the true sense of Smetana’s Czech inflected rhythms and harmonies

Smetana's The Bartered Bride by Opera North at Leeds Grand Theatre directed by Daniel Slater is a confident revival of an old success. 

Smetana wrote Prodaná nevěsta (“The Bartered Bride”) as a light Czech folk piece in a playful reply to critics who said that his music was too Wagnerian, or too German for that matter – something not compatible with the growing Czech national consciousness in the period he composed it (1863–66), even though he only showed mild interest in the Czech cause.

The Bartered Bride, premiered in 1866, is considered to be Smetana’s masterpiece in the operatic genre and is widely regarded as the national opera of the Czech Republic. Despite this, for their second and last production this year, New Zealand Opera elected to perform the opera in English translation rather than the original Czech, aiming to speak to their audiences in a more direct fashion.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary season, British Youth Opera are once again exploring the 19th- and 20th-century lyric repertoire in staging their first ever production of Smetana’s comic opera The Bartered Bride alongside Judith Weir’s A Night at the Chinese Opera.