Search - Smetana, Soukupova, Kosler :: Secret

A problematic work

G.D. | Norway | 12/05/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"`Tajemstvi', `The Secret', Smetana's penultimate opera, has never made any real headway into the West (and is only modestly popular in the Czech republic as well). One can understand why, for this is a rather problematic piece and obviously inferior to The Bartered Bride (which seems to be its closest model).



Smetana's attempted return to the folksy cheerfulness of that work comes with a dark and uneasy strain. Gone is the vigorous and boisterous spirit, replaced by something much bleaker, and the shots at genuine merriness in the score seem hollow and colorless. There are, to be sure, moments of tenderness (some of the ensemble pieces in particular) and times when Smetana's personal voice is not in doubt, but in general the result is a little anonymous - it is, for instance, not as successful as his next and last opera, `The Devil's Wall'.



Singing is adequate to good, and the playing under Kosler is fine. The second disc ends with a fragment from his uncompleted Viola (the last couple of minutes with piano accompaniment), apparently a dramatic work which based on the fragment here would not have been a very memorable work either (but then, it sounds more or less like first drafts for much of the time). All in all, this is a worthwhile but far from mandatory set."