Even before its premiere, Smetana began to alter his comic opera, the beginning of a long series of transformations and versions. An introduction on the publication of newly-set performance material from Bärenreiter Praha.

The Bartered Bride, the striking story of the deceived marriage broker, the parents’ relenting and the victory of true love, which takes place on just one day at a village church festival, was subject to several revisions between its premiere on 30 May 1866 and the last version of 1870. These came about not only because of Smetana’s artistic desires or his reaction to criticism, but also in connection with the emerging possibilities of a performance of the opera abroad. Today the opera is usually performed in its last version with recitatives, but at the time of its composition, different versions were created which are fully valid artistically. These summarize the state of comic opera in a remarkable way from the mid-19th century, in the whole breadth and depth of its European tradition – from dramma giocoso and opera buffa to opéra comique and opéra bouffe.

Two months before the premiere, Smetana and his librettist Sabina expanded the opera by adding a scene with a circus troupe, revised the finale and ended the first version with this. It had twenty-one musical numbers, linked by prose dialogue. By the third performance on 27 October 1866, small alterations had appeared in the work. Smetana then succeeded in having The Bartered Bride performed at the gala performance on the occasion of the visit of Emperor Franz Joseph I to the Provisional Theatre in Prague during his postwar tour of inspection. An added ballet (the Dance of the Gypsies), to music from the dance scene in The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, was intended to lend the opera a more impressive aura; with this, Smetana replaced the cut couplet about human hypocrisy. The Bartered Bride was performed a few more times with this incidental ballet, particularly on festive occasions; the Circus Master’s couplet was only finally cut from the opera in the third version.

As a result of the alterations in the opera in 1868–69, in which Smetana responded to requests for more ‘national’ colour at the same time, particularly with the composition of the dance scenes, two new versions were presented in quick succession: firstly, a version was performed on 29 January 1869 in the Provisional Theatre in which the unusually long first act was divided by an alteration entailing a newly-composed drinking chorus for the beginning of the second part. For the beginning of the second act a sung polka was newly composed, and Smetana also deepened the role of Mařenka by the addition of her second aria “Ten lásky sen” [“That dream of love”]. This version was replaced after four performances by a new version on 1 June 1869 and performed at the summer theatre of the New Town Theatre. The opera was now finally divided into three acts, further new dance numbers appeared, a furiant and a hop dance, and a newly-composed march introduced the entrance of the circus troupe. After nine performances of this version, the fourth version of the work was finally staged on 25 September 1870 at the Provisional Theatre in Prague; its biggest change – the replacement of the spoken prose by recitatives – was made in connection with a forthcoming performance of the opera in St. Petersburg.

The basis for the completely newly-set performance material by Bärenreiter is the musical text of the critical edition of the full score by František Bartoš, published as part of the study edition of the Works of Bedřich Smetana of 1940; it also uses the second revised edition of 1953, together with the critical edition of the libretto by Nejedlý and the composer’s own vocal score published in 1951, which was again revised for the second edition of 1954 by Bartoš. The new edition of the vocal score by Bartoš contains Kàan’s arrangement of the overture for piano solo (Smetana’s original four-hand arrangement for piano was omitted) and, alongside the original Czech text, Kurt Honolka’s German singing translation of 1958.              

Marta Ottlová
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson)
(from [t]akte 1/2012)