The Bartered Bride (review)

Naxos's interest in historic performances has brought forth the first complete recording of The Bartered Bride, dating from 1933. There is only one peerless vocal achievement here (the Vasek, surprisingly enough), but the performance is more than the sum of its parts and is worth seeking out.

The opera itself hasn't worn its years especially well, especially in America. Its charm is perhaps somewhat elusive and certainly loses a good deal in translation, as the Metropolitan Opera discovered in its disappointing production a couple of decades ago. Not just in America, but also frequently abroad, companies tend to treat the piece in a heavy-handed manner. It doesn't help that certain episodes tend to excessive length and bog down both musically and dramatically. Obviously, the piece's strengths can be best accentuated and its weaknesses minimized by performers with a native connection to the Czech idiom.

The most positive element of the Naxos performance is delivery of the text by all concerned. This provides the same satisfaction one experiences in hearing any ensemble whose performers share a common heritage (think of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, the Opéra-Comique, the Kirov Opera). Particularly in purely conversational passages, one senses that each artist here has transformed his or her singing into simple speaking on pitch. The performance's essential authority also comes in large part from Otakar Ostrcil, who leads it in both decisive and sensitive style, with the Prague orchestra coping well in all but the most virtuosic passages.

The cast does not abound with truly distinctive personalities, vital in this opera's every role. Glyndebourne Festival Opera got it right in a new production a few years ago (with the two mothers portrayed by Anne Howells and Helga Dernesch, star performers who had successfully made the transition into character parts). Obviously, every company can't cast on that level, but that's precisely the kind of vividness needed in even the smaller roles if The Bartered Bride is to triumph.

This leads us to the 1933 recording's leading lady, Ada Nordenová, a major singer in Prague but a less-than-sparkling presence here as Marenka. Her strong lyric voice lacks bloom at the top, whether in the floated phrases or the climactic ones in which any good Marenka must revel. Lacking, too, is the youthful timbre so necessary in this role. She knows her way around each scene and certainly does nothing phony or forced. Still, it's too bad she doesn't portray this immensely appealing girl with more sympathy and individuality (check out the young Sena Jurinac's classic German-language recording of the third-act aria to hear what is missing). The exception to that is Marenka's dialogue with Vasek, which is something special; here, the soprano suddenly finds a real (and enchanting) smile in the tone while effectively projecting the character's total command of the situation.

Opposite Nordenová are two tenors who could easily have exchanged roles. In Vladimir Toms´'s Jeník one hears a fairly typical Slavic sound of the period— character-tenorish in the lower-middle, significantly fuller above the staff. He can fine it down for the more intimate passages, and in the first duet he has an easier time than his Marenka with the difficult, unprepared soft attack on high B-flat. He also deals dashingly with the allegro of the long duet with Kecal, and the very tricky act 2 aria, which lies right on the passaggio, is well managed. The character's brashness and confidence are not consistently in evidence; this, plus the voice itself, leads the listener...