Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Dvorak: Saint Ludmila, Stabat Mater

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

Lyric theater programming for this fifth Sunday in Lent remains in oratorio mode, since by tradition the opera houses in old Catholic Europe (and in Protestant lands too) remained closed until after Easter.

One of my favorite sacred choral works is Antonin Dvorak's Svata Ludmila ("Saint Ludmila," 1885-86). Since I first presented it on Sunday, April 6, 1986 I have made use of the same old Supraphon LP set in our station's classical music record library. It preserves a now historic and thoroughly Czech interpretation of the work, recorded in 1965. Vaclav Smetacek led the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, with native Czech speaking vocal soloists. I drew upon the same Supraphon vinyl discs for Lenten/Holy Week broadcasts in 2007, 2013, and 2019.

For my own personal record collection I have acquired the 2017 Naxos release of "Saint Ludmila". Recorded in 2015 in Bratislava, in what is now the independent Slovakian state (no longer part of former communist Czechoslovakia), this new version of Dvorak's oratorio has a few cuts to the score. Leos Svarovsky directs the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. Again, the vocal soloists are native Slovak or Czech speaking.

Eleven hundred years ago the pagan Czechs received Christian missionaries. A Bohemian princess converted to Catholicism. In a power struggle within the royal family of Bohemia she was assassinated and soon came to be revered as a martyr, and Bohemia's patron saint. Dvorak's "Saint Ludmila" premiered at the Leeds Festival in England in 1886. The English public had welcomed new oratorios since the time of Handel, and the Victorians also very much liked Dvorak's musical style.

Dvorak's musical treatment of the Latin devotional poem Stabat Mater (1877) established his international reputation as a composer. After its premiere in Prague in 1880 it quickly became his most popular choral work. The Stabat Mater has been set to music by a  great many composers, going at least as far back as Josquin des Prez. The poem describes the emotional torment of the Virgin Mary as she beholds her crucified Son. The Dvorak Stabat Mater Op. 58 has been frequently recorded, making it easy for me to give it an airing at least four times in my timeslot between 1991 and 2003, with a recording of the earlier 1876 version with piano accompaniment coming on Sunday, March 29, 2009.

Hear it once again this Sunday in full orchestral scoring as taped in monaural sound in a 1953 radio broadcast from Berlin. The Hungarian conductor Ferenc Fricsay directed the RIAS Symphony Orchestra and the Choir of St. Hedwig's Cathedral of Berlin with four vocal soloists. The German Relief label has issued a series of airtapes like this one from the 1950s on silver disc.