THE BARTERED BRIDE – SMETANA
Presented on Nov 30 Dec 2, 4, 5 at the Gaiety Theatre Dublin as part of the Dublin Grand Opera Society’s Winter Season
Dolores Burke – Marenka
Rowland Jones / Thomas Round[Dec 4, 5] – Jeník
Bruce Dargaval – Kecal
Powell Lloyd – Vašek
Leslie Pearson – Krušina
Jean Healy – Ludmilla
Patricia Lawlor – Háta
Sam Mooney – Mícha
Josephine O’Hagan – Esmeralda
Joseph Flood – Circus Master
Lt-Col J M Doyle – Conductor
Powell Lloyd – Producer
The society was presenting Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride” for the first time and though it was an unknown work in Dublin, it opened the season. The storyline centres around a Czech village romance and Smetana’s music is irresistible with lively dance rhythms and catchy melodies. The Herald critic, John Finegan, felt the spoken dialogue was a blessing, in that it helped to make an unfamiliar plot easy to understand. His one main criticism centred on the large chorus of seventy which though singing admirably, tended to crowd the stage so that movement was lethargic and grouping difficult. The opera, it seems, was well cast with Irish soprano Dolores Burke and Welsh tenor Rowland Jones convincing lovers. I liked one critic’s final paragraph, ‘The settings are irreproachable, the Czech atmosphere unmistakable. All hail to the unrecorded designer!’ In the Irish Press, Robert Johnston was somewhat sceptical about the opera, expressing doubt that it would achieve any lasting measure of success in Dublin in the long-term.
(Extracted from “Love and Music: The Glorious History of the Dublin Grand Opera Society” by Gus Smith, 1998)
Opera in Ireland 