Theater Osnabrück is the first German opera house to stage a production of Antonín Dvořák’s seldom-performed opera Vanda. It has achieved a magnificent performance in every respect. The dramaturg responsible for the production introduces the work.
Of Antonín Dvořák’s works it is Rusalka which we know and love. But who knows that the great Czech musician composed at least nine further stage works? These include Vanda, written by the 34-year-old Dvořák in 1875. This work has never previously been performed on a German stage, and even productions in Dvořák’s native country can be counted on the fingers of one hand. This small number of performances is surprising, given the colourfulness of the music, the great choral tableaus and several tremendously exciting scenes.
Of course Vanda, in the style of French grand opéra, is an opulent work, demanding energy, imagination and effort from its instrumental and vocal forces, but also from all those involved in staging the work. And the story, which alternates between myth and history, is not the most obvious candidate for performance in more modern times.
The opera is set in the 11th century and is based on a version of the story about the Polish King’s daughter Vanda/Wanda. Poland was not yet a nation, and its settlements aroused envy amongst stronger neighbours. Christianity had not yet taken hold, and instead the people believed in natural deities such as Svantovit, the god of the four seasons and god of war, or the dark god Tschernobog.
Destined by her father King Krak to succeed him, Vanda ascends the royal throne after his death. The people would like to see a strong King at her side who will protect and defend the country against enemies from outside. Vanda’s friend from her youth, Slavoj, is not nobly born, but he brings his people with him to support him as King. But the German prince Roderich courts Vanda as his wife and to rule over Poland. In order to save her country in this hopeless situation, Vanda offers the gods her life in a fateful oath. She subsequently successfully defeats Roderich’s German army and fulfils her oath with a leap to her death into the River Vistula.
Whether Vanda really existed is not known. But she lives on in the national consciousness as part of the Polish founding myth around its old capital city of Krakow.
But how does a 19th century Czech composer come to write an opera about a medieval Polish king’s daughter? Dvořák’s native Bohemia was part of the huge Austrian-Hungarian Habsburg empire and was therefore ruled by foreign powers. However, from the mid-19th century onwards, the Czechs were allowed more independence. Thus plans for a Czech national theatre in Prague could be realised. As the completion of the theatre building was delayed, a Provisional Theatre was built so that works could be performed in the Czech language from 1862 until the National Theatre opened in 1881. Bedřich Smetana, one of the leading figures in the national movement, worked there from 1866 to 1874 as principal music director, and Antonín Dvořák was his first violist. Smetana had composed Libussa, the story of the founder of Prague of the same name, for the opening of the new theatre. The opera had long been completed, but the theatre remained a building site. And so Smetana gave the young Dvořák the chance of premiering an opera in the Provisional Theatre. Dvořák also searched for a majesterial subject which took the national consciousness into account. On 17 April 1876 Vanda received its premiere. The first independent Czech (then Czechoslovakian) Republic was founded in 1918.
Ulrike Schumann (Theater Osnabrück)
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson)
(from [t]akte 1/2014)