The calm and peaceful lives of two young widows - cousins Karolina and Anežka, who live together on a countryside estate - is suddenly stirred up by an unexpected visitor. It becomes obvious that the mysterious poacher, who suddenly appears in the estate’s forest, is not out hunting for a doe but rather pining for one of them.

At the beginning of the 1870s, Smetana faced a rising number of challenges to his position of artistic director of Prague’s opera ensemble. From this tense and pressured period for the composer sprang a work of immense creative grace. He seems to delight in evoking a world of people of refined manners, fine culture and the gentle atmosphere of a rural estate. Perhaps it was a relief from life's difficulties and an escape from everyday dullness - a kind of summer fairy tale with a happy end. With The Two Widows, Smetana created a unique style of conversational opera, which Richard Strauss considered one of the best operas of 19th century. As an integral part of the Smetana Opera Cycle Ostrava 2024, the production was staged by Slovenian director and scenographer Rocc, who offers a rare non-Czech point of view on this lesser-known gem of the operatic repertoire.

Full performance streamed on OperaVision from 26 July 2024 at 19:00 CET to 26 January 2025 at 12:00 CET: https://operavision.eu/performance/tw...

CAST

Karolina
Lada Bočková

Anežka
Veronika Rovná

Ladislav Podhajský
Martin Šrejma

Mumlal
Martin Gurbaľ

Toník
Václav Čížek

Lidka
Karolína Levková

Priest
Petr Urbánek

Orchestra
National Moravian‐Silesian Opera Orchestra

Chorus
National Moravian-Silesian Opera Chorus

Music
Bedřich Smetana

Text
Emanuel František Züngel after Jean Pierre Félicien Mallefille

Conductor
Marek Šedivý

Direction & sets
Rocc

Costumes
Belinda Radulović

Movement Director
Anna Knollová

Chorus Master
Jurij Galatenko

Dramaturg
Juraj Bajús

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