Vanda (opera)
- Wanda, daughter of the late Polish Prince Krak (soprano )
- Bozena and her sister (mezzo- soprano)
- Slavoj, Krakow Knight (tenor )
- Pagan High Priest ( bass)
- Lumír, Krakow Bard (baritone )
- Homena, Sorceress (mezzo- soprano)
- Roderich, German prince (baritone )
- Messenger / herald (Tenor)
- Velislav, Vserad and Vitomir, tribal chiefs
- (Choir): the lower classes nobles, soldiers, the elders of the Krakow country girl from the wake of Wanda, pagan priest, strange knight
Wanda ( Vanda Czech ) op 25 is a tragic opera in five acts by Antonín Dvořák. It originated from April to December 1875. With the premiere on April 17, 1876 Rudolf Savoy opened his tenure as director of the Prague Prozatímní theater.
Action
The Polish prince's daughter Wanda fights passionately against Roderick, a German prince, and throws himself to the salvation of their country in the waves of the Vistula. Above all, the battle between the pagan Slavs and Christian Germans was worked out. Some motifs, such as the dispute between the applicants for the hand of the ruler, the choice of the husband and of the ruler of the level is low and the transition of governance from the woman to the man associated with the Bohemian legends about the Princess Libuse.
Reception history
The world premiere staging experienced only four more performances during the season 1876/77 before it was removed from the board. Under John of Nepomuk Mayr, Savoy successor in the office of the Director, there were 1880 four more Wanda performances, albeit in drastically shortened version. Both productions lacked singer capacities and adequate stage ways to do the work properly to the performance. Planned performances as in Vienna or Budapest were not realized.
1881 acquired August Alwin Cranz the publishing and partly also the performance rights by the composer.
In the 20th century the opera was brought all 3 times on stage, but not in the original version. 1925 they played in Plzeň. The National Theatre in Prague took her in 1929. After 1989 there was a production in Olomouc.
Source location
The autograph score sent Dvořák probably 1883 to Leipzig. There seems to have been destroyed in a 1943 bombing by the Allies in early December.
A still -existing, authenticated copy of a Cranz - copyist has many serious discrepancies with the original performance material that are likely to result from error corrections, which Dvořák himself undertook in 1900. On the occasion of his 60th birthday in 1901, a cycle of his operas was planned at the National Theatre viz. However, under time pressure, he was able to fix some of the obvious errors. For the most part, his changes and improvements in the existing score that Cranz sent him instead of the autograph to decipher.
Other additives or complete etchings, which were made during the past 20 years, but many of his corrections made illegible. However, the most serious changes in the dramaturgical and musical flow moved the decision of the opera director Edmund Chvalovsky and the conductor Adolf Cech according to 1880 to bring a new production to the stage.
Except for one at the time of the premiere printed libretto are the total primary sources of the opera before only in manuscript. Only three individual numbers from the opera have been published to date, including the new Overture, Dvořák composed the theater for the revised version of the staging of 1880 Prozatímní against the end of 1879.
A study initiated by conductor Gerd Albrecht new edition contains all the additions and changes, which Dvořák himself undertook in the course of 25 years since its premiere in 1876 until the year 1901. Albrecht, who has already played the Dvořák 's operas Dimitrij and Armida left, but reconstruct parts of the score from the original orchestral parts.
Librettistenfrage
The title page of the printed edition of the text book and contemporary newspaper and magazine articles According comes the libretto of Václav Benes Sumavsky and Frantisek Zákrejs, the handwritten material to do so by a professor Julian Surzycki from Warsaw, whose real identity is, however, difficult to determine as a template. Since it is assessed as highly unlikely that Dvořák has given a libretto by the preference that is based on the submission of an author who was to him personally quite unknown, and also as a writer had no reputation, it is believed that the original source for Wanda by a person was written that he was closer, but perhaps wished to remain anonymous for political reasons. If the original source was written in French or, more likely, in German language, it would be given the political climate that prevailed in the 70s of the 19th century by the National Czech renewal movements in Bohemia, has been a huge obstacle for a possible success of the opera if you libretto based on a template in a non- Slavic language.
About the Music
Dvořák's music to the " historical epic " Wanda is evidence of harmonic richness, full color instrumentation, fine and transparent texture and rhythmic vitality. Strong lyrical themes are the whole opera through numerous transformations subjected to accommodate a wide variety of dramatic situations. Impressive solo arias, ensembles complicated, ballet interludes, and especially choral numbers together make extensive scene complexes in the nature of the Grand Opéra.