The Bartered Bride and National
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A “BOHEMIAN” PREMIERE? SMETANA’S THE BARTERED BRIDE AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN 1909 NEW YORK Laura Fehr, B.M. Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2020 APPROVED: Peter Mondelli, Major Professor Margaret Notley, Committee Member Mark McKnight, Committee Member Benjamin Brand, Chair of the Division of Music History, Theory, and Ethnomusicology Felix Olschofka, Director of Graduate Studies in the College of Music John Richmond, Dean of the College of Music Victor Prybutok, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Fehr, Laura. A “Bohemian” Premiere? Smetana’s The Bartered Bride and National Identity in 1909 New York. Master of Arts (Music), May 2020, 43 pp., 2 appendices, bibliography, 52 titles. When Czech composer Bedřich Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride received its American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in February 1909, New York music critics published positive reviews which displayed a great fascination with the many “Bohemian” aspects of the production. However, certain comments or language used by some critics indicate that American opinions of the Czech people were less than positive. After Czechs began immigrating to America en masse in 1848, already-established American citizens developed skewed cultural perceptions of the Czech people, established negative stereotypes, and propagated their opinions in various forms of press throughout the nation. Despite a general dislike of the Czechs, reviewers revered The Bartered Bride and praised its many authentic “Bohemian” qualities. This research explores the idea of a paradoxical cultural phenomenon in which the prejudice against Czech people did not fully cross over into the musical sphere. Instead, appreciation for Czech music and musicians may have trumped any such negative opinions and authentic Czech productions such as The Bartered Bride may have been considered a novelty in the eyes of early twentieth-century New Yorkers. Copyright 2020 by Laura Fehr ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2. THE BARTERED BRIDE: THE AMERICAN PREMIERE ................................... 4 CHAPTER 3. THE “BOHEMIAN” ISSUE ................................................................................. 14 CHAPTER 4. CZECH MUSICIANS IN NEW YORK CITY ..................................................... 22 CHAPTER 5. IMPLICATIONS: CZECH OPERA IN NEW YORK CITY ................................ 26 APPENDIX A. CZECH AND GERMAN CHARACTER NAMES............................................ 35 APPENDIX B. THE BARTERED BRIDE PLOT SUMMARY .................................................... 37 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 40 iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION When thousands of Bohemian residents emigrated en masse to America beginning in the late 1840s, a new cultural phenomenon was born. The Czech people brought to their new community in America a rich culture and a strong sense of nationalism. Czech immigration, the immigrants themselves, and the various products of their establishment in the United States remain understudied today. During the first half-century of their time in America, it was primarily the Czechs themselves who kept a strong documentary history of their people both in their new country and their homeland. Unfortunately, many of their publications and writings have been lost to time. What exists perhaps in larger quantities, however, are various forms of documentation which display, both in outright and subtle ways, prejudice against or misunderstandings of Czech immigrants on the part of already-established American citizens. By the early 1900s, the term “Bohemian” had become a common label for people of Czech origin in America, serving to differentiate this ethnic group from other groups of immigrants. The use of this term was a highly sensitive issue for members of the Czech community, however, as it had become a term also used for Romani and individuals who led unconventional lives. This slippage caused many Americans to have misconceptions about the people of Czech (Bohemian) origin. This in turn had an impact on the reception of Czech music and musicians in New York City. Although many beloved Czech musicians emigrated to New York and obtained substantial influence over the New York music scene, misunderstandings persisted. By 1909 when Bedřich Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride premiered at The Metropolitan Opera, the term “Bohemian” had come to stand for a mixture of positive and 1 negative associations, of carefully crafted self-identification and general misconceptions.1 A critic for The New York Times said in his review of the premiere that “the opera gave much pleasure, and was received with genuine enthusiasm, not only by the representatives of the Bohemian colony who were present, but also by the great body of the audience, perhaps more sophisticated in the matter of new productions, and not especially prejudiced in favor of peasant operas.”2 Thus, the use of “Bohemian” in the wake of the first American performance of The Bartered Bride indicates that the American view of Czech compositions and performers was ultimately skewed by richly complex cultural perceptions of Czech people. To understand the complexity of the reception of Czech music in New York fully, it is important to understand first the discourse surrounding the city’s Czech immigrant culture. My thesis seeks to cultivate such an understanding using the American premiere of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride as a case study. By examining the language used in newspaper reviews surrounding the opera’s premiere, as well as in other articles for comparison, I have discovered the frequency with which ethnically charged reviews were written. Subsequently, having observed the convergence of American and Czech culture at this performance and working outward, I have illuminated the cross-cultural exchange of Czech opera being performed in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This thesis begins with a detailed look into the premiere performance of The Bartered Bride in America, focusing on performers and the conductor, distinctively Czech elements in both the music and libretto, and how the opera was received by citizens of New York and local 1 Marek Vlha. “’What is the Bohemian nation?’ Geneze povedomí o ceském národu ve Spojených státech amerických do pocátku 20. Století” ["’What is the Bohemian Nation?’ A Genesis of the Awareness of the Czech Nation in the United States of America up to the Beginning of the 20th Century”], Cesky Casopis Historicky 113, no. 2 (2015): 415. 2 Richard Aldrich, “’Bartered Bride’ at Metropolitan,” review of The Bartered Bride, Metropolitan Opera, New York Times, February 20, 1909. 2 Czech immigrants. Most importantly, however, this chapter introduces the “Bohemian” discourse surrounding the opera. The third chapter provides a brief history of Czech immigration to America and the lives the immigrants made in their new country. Here, I explore the possibility that prejudices existed against the Czechs. I also explain the origin of the word “Bohemian” and how its acquired meanings may have led to misconceptions about the Czechs as well as Czech reactions against such misunderstandings. In the fourth chapter, I briefly explain a few of the roles that various Czech musicians played in the development of New York’s music scene and how a select few were received by the New York newspaper critics or by the general population. In the final chapter of my thesis, I synthesize the information to find possible explanations for the cultural phenomenon that was The Bartered Bride premiere. 3 CHAPTER 2 THE BARTERED BRIDE: THE AMERICAN PREMIERE When news that Czech composer Bedřich Smetana’s opera, The Bartered Bride (Czech title, Prodana Nevesta) was finally to premiere on American soil during the Metropolitan Opera’s 1908-1909 season, both frequent New York opera attendees and the Czech community were eager to witness the momentous event. The Bartered Bride had premiered at the Provisional Theatre in Prague in 1866. After the opera underwent revisions, the final version was premiered at the Provisional Theatre in 1870. The opera was slow to achieve popularity outside Bohemia and did not truly enter the operatic repertory until its performance at the Vienna National Music and Theatre Exhibition in 1892 by the Prague Provisional Theatre. By the time of the opera’s American premiere on February 19, 1909, The Bartered Bride had garnered a spectacular reputation throughout both Europe and America.3 The opera was considered a benchmark of Czech nationalism by people of Czech heritage as it boldly exemplified the lives, rich culture, and unique musical essence of Bohemia and its people.4 For the Czech immigrant community of New York City in particular, the opera—even though it was performed in German translation—not only resonated with them and reminded them of their homeland, but offered a positive glimpse of their country and their 3 Contrary to most sources, which state that the American premiere took place at the Metropolitan Opera in 1909, some sources have claimed that it occurred much earlier. Julius Mattfeld in A Handbook of American Opera Premieres 1731-1962 states that the first performance took place in Chicago at the Haymarket Theater on August 20th, 1893. This claim is also found in an article by