US premiere of Smetana’s Dalibor staged at Bard SummerScape with all-American cast

More than 150 years after its Czech debut, Bedřich Smetana’s opera Dalibor was performed for the first time in the United States. It premiered on Friday at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, featuring a cast made up entirely of American singers.

'Dalibor'|Source: Fisher Center

Each year, the modern theatre complex at Bard College showcases works by composers rarely heard on American stages. This season, Leon Botstein, music director of the arts faculty and conductor of Dalibor, chose the opera by Bedřich Smetana.

“At Bard, our mission is to produce operas not part of the standard American repertoire. We’ll never do Figaro, Traviata, or Madama Butterfly. Even when we did a Puccini Festival, we chose Iris by Mascagni—the lesser-known Japanese-themed Italian opera.”

The romantic opera tells the story of Dalibor, a nobleman, who had killed a neighboring lord in revenge for the execution of his best friend, Zdeněk. Imprisoned in the Daliborka tower, he awaits the king’s judgment, plays his friend’s violin, and plans an escape with the help of Milada, the sister of the man he killed, who has fallen in love with him. In the end, they both die.

While Dalibor wasn’t Botstein’s first encounter with the Czech composer’s work, he had never conducted one of his full operas before.

Daliborka|Photo: Jolana Nováková, Czech Radio

“Like every conductor, I've done the overture to The Bartered Bride. I'm also familiar with Smetana’s reception after his death, especially how he was elevated during the communist era as the symbol of true Czech national music, while Dvořák and Martinů were somewhat diminished. I may have done one of the early overtures, Wallenstein, but I’ve never had the opportunity to work with music from the two big operas, Dalibor and Libuše.”

When Dalibor was first produced in the 1860s, some critics accused Smetana of borrowing too much from Richard Wagner, a comparison Botstein doesn’t agree with, arguing that the orchestral colour owes more to Liszt. He also points to elements in Dalibor that feel more Italian than German:

“There’s something that you see in Janáček too, who was an admirer of Puccini, something non-Germanically lyrical. The love duets are just fantastic.

Fisher Center|Photo: Pavel Novák, Czech Radio

“And there are moments of unbelievable harmonic ingenuity with sudden, unprepared shifts in tonality that are emotionally powerful and very modernist, if you will.

“The other thing which I like about it is that there are not many operas where the hero is music, and the main symbol of the opera is a violin.”

The production is directed by French director Jean-Romain Vesperini, who highlights the emotional bond between Dalibor and Zdeněk through symbolic staging. Zdeněk appears not only as a silent figure onstage, but also in dreamlike projections created with video mapping.

According to Vesperini, Dalibor tells the story of a powerful knightly bond, one he chose to highlight in a way that speaks to modern audiences.

“It’s true that I’ve added some colour to the interpretation, because audiences here in the United States are fairly liberal,” he says. “Let’s remember: Dalibor says Zdeněk’s name nearly thirty times in the libretto, but Milada’s only five or six.

“I wanted to show that it wasn’t necessarily a homosexual relationship, rather that Dalibor transformed his love for Zdeněk into sexual passion for Milada. That’s something more acceptable today than it was back then.”

Véronique Firkušný|Photo: Tomáš Vodňanský, Czech Radio

The cast of this American production is made up entirely of US-based singers. To help them master the Czech language, Bard College brought in Veronique Firkušny, daughter of pianist Rudolf Firkušný, who served as both language coach and artistic advisor.

“I think when you're just looking at the words on the page, without hearing them, it can be very intimidating,” she says. “But once they hear the words pronounced, they become more curious and are able to mimic the sound.

“With Czech, I really feel the language supports the music, and the music supports the language. That’s why it’s so wonderful that more Czech operas are performed in Czech — it truly makes a difference.”

Soprano Cadie J. Bryan, who sings Milada, had sung in Czech before, but says Dalibor presented new challenges. When asked about the Czech sound that was hardest to pronounce, she doesn’t hesitate:

“Well, you probably already know which one. It’s the one that’s universally hard: ‘Ř’!”

Tenor John Matthew Myers, who performs the title role, agrees:

“It’s not just single consonants, it’s the consonant clusters that are the hardest. We’re used to having vowels between consonants to give us space, so adjusting to that was tricky. But once you get used to it, and let your mouth relax into it, it starts to feel more natural.”

Just like conductor Leon Botstein, the two lead singers also appreciate the opera’s tragic final scene:

“I joke with my wife, who’s a soprano, that she always gets to die on stage, and I’ve always wanted a death scene. Now I finally get one, and it’s lovely!

“This is probably my first official on-stage death, and I have to say, it’s one of my favourite parts of the opera musically. Every time we get to that scene, I think, ‘Yes, here we go!’”

Dalibor has several performances remaining at Bard College. In August, the theatre will continue its celebration of Czech music with a festival dedicated to the works of Bohuslav Martinů.