Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Dvorak: Wanda

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

From the celebratory mood of the Christian holiday Easter Sunday, we turn to a tragic tale about a pagan Slavic princess. Like his elder colleague Bedrzich Smetana, Antonin Dvorak composed in the new Czech national idiom. Dvorak's symphonies are loved worldwide and much played and recorded, especially the "New World" Symphony No. 9.

Dvorak's operas, on the other hand, are rarely heard outside his native land. Rusalka (1901) is perhaps the best known of the ten he wrote. Dvorak's five act tragic opera Wanda (1881) premiered at the Czech National Theatre in Prague. Wanda reflects upon Polish, not Czech national history. The Polish heroine sacrifices herself; she throws herself into the river Vistula and drowns. As a lyric stagework, this is a barbarian epic spectacle. Dvorak's music for Wanda possesses all the melodic beauty of his symphonies.

A German conductor Gerd Albrecht has given us what might be the most musically complete recorded version of Wanda. It was made for Orfeo, the record label of Radio Austria, under the auspices of West German Radio. Albrecht leads the Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of Radio Cologne,with an international cast of vocal soloists, some of whom are native Czech singers. I last broadcast the three Orfeo CD's on Sunday, January 27, 2001.