Search - Theodor Srubar, Vaclav Bednar, Bedrich Smetana :: Smetana: Dalibor

A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF ADO

DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 12/11/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Forget the star-rating. Star-ratings are convenient up to a point, but there are times when they are useless and worse than useless, and this is one of those times. If anyone were to tell me that there was a version of Dalibor by, say, Karajan, that was free of the shortcomings of this set but which I could have as a 5-star alternative I would not even be interested.



Dalibor is a lovely work, and the special fascination of this set is to hear it performed by Czech performers in their 1950 style. Czech musicians tend to claim special expertise in performing their native music. That seems reasonable enough until one asks them why their current style of performance is not like that of Talich, to which they are prone to reply that Talich's way is not how they do it nowadays. The conductor here, Jaroslav Krombholc, is far less famous than Talich but he is roughly contemporary with him, and the political authorities in Czechoslovakia in 1950 were concerned to preserve their authentic national style. They were even reluctant to let their star tenor Beno Blachut travel abroad, and I have to agree that he does his country and the role of Dalibor proud here.



The reissue of this set on cd is from 2001, nothing is said about remastering of the sound, but as 1950 sound I would say it is rather good. Indeed, some of the faults seem to have taken place at the time of the transfer. In particular the divisions between tracks sometimes occur at odd places, and what on earth happened at the start of act III, the changeover from track 7 to track 8 on the second disc? In general, the sound tends to add a touch of `edge' to some of the voices, particularly the soprano voices, which is a slight pity as they are not the strongest performers among the cast to begin with. Stefa Petrova as Jitka is a bit unsteady and wobbly, and her voice is not the most seductive I ever heard. Marie Podvalova in the bigger part of Milada is better, and really powerful and impressive in her duet with Dalibor in act II, but the wobbles get to her slightly in act III, and when she shows a touch of strain in high-lying passages the recording does her no favours. Fortunately the male soloists and the chorus come off much better. All have agreeable voices, and Karel Kalas as the elderly gaolor manages to sound the part very realistically. However, one of the main reasons for having this set is to hear Blachut, who is simply magnificent. This is no assembly-line voice, and to say the least this is no run-of-the-mill musician. I actually used to speak a little Czech although it is not so much rusty as totally disintegrated by now, but I can still appreciate hearing the language sung by those born to sing it, and when it comes to as great an artist as Blachut the sense of authenticity compounds the joy of listening to his beautiful tone and lyric power.



Bohemia in the 19th century was a bit of a musical backwater. In the sphere of opera this was the age of Berlioz, of Verdi, and of course of Wagner. Smetana had to do most of the spadework in establishing a native operatic tradition, and it seems to me that he acquits himself magnificently despite some severe handicaps. The hand of the amateur shows in the libretto in the first place. I have no particular interest in the question of how true to history it may be to represent Dalibor as some hero. From an operatic point of view, the sad truth appears to be that the story-line is about as unimaginative as could be, er, imagined, and the characters are stuffed parrots with no individuality. Above all, absolutely nothing actually HAPPENS in this libretto. Everything is either reported, or pointed to, or commented on, and in act I especially the inaction is stretched out to painful length. Verdi would have known how to teach such a librettist his business, but Smetana just works with what he has been given, and I give him very high marks indeed for achieving variety in the pace of the story and the mood of the various dialogues. Creative staging would have helped if we could see the action, but even without it the music is still convincing and involving, not to say beautiful in the extreme.



Not everything is totally `professional', and I'm almost inclined to say all the better for that. Professionalism is of course admirable, but sometimes there is a sense of spontaneity when the artists are feeling their way to some extent, and it's a sense I enjoy in this Dalibor. The orchestra, for one example, is a standard 19th century symphony orchestra and not some Berliozian or Wagnerian sound-orgy. In general Smetana's writing for it is adept and colourful, but a couple of attempts at achieving staginess by using a harp really sound simply out of place. Again, you would not think you were listening to the Berlin Phil or the LSO, but what interests me is to hear genuine Czech players from an era before they became more assimilated.



I should ignore the much-noticed resemblance to Fidelio in one detail of the plot. It is unfair to Smetana, who is setting a folk-tale and not proclaiming human liberation via music. Indeed, for all the greatness of Fidelio in so many ways, I still think that old man Beethoven was no stage-dramatist whereas the way Smetana surmounts the inadequacy of his libretto suggests to me that his gifts in that direction were considerable. There are too many rough edges to this endearing production for me to give it 5 stars in the conventional way, but conventionality is not what I was looking for. What it offers me is something far better, something I don't expect to find again soon, if ever."

Idealism Versus "Real Life"

John D. Pilkey | Santa Clarita, CA USA | 09/23/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Dalibor was a legendary hero of the late 15th century treated as a Czech national treasure by the opera. A minor fault is that the libretto is translated into unidiomatic English. The sound is reasonably good considering the recording date in 1950. Nationalism of the sort presented here may seem naive; but opera thrives on such idealism and suffered from the lack of it in the 20th century. Dalibor is preferable to Janacek's Jenufa despite the prowess of Janacek's music. Jenufa wallows in what some choose to call "the human condition," i.e. lack of faith and hope. I keep asking myself as I listen to Jenufa, "What is the meaning of all this?" Dalibor, on the contrary, displays value and meaning in every scene. Granted that the historical character Dalibor was not much like the opera's hero, a taste for such heroes, whether fact or fiction, correlates with arete, the courageous willingness to act rather than wallow in passive despair. The ideal Dalibor of the opera speaks for the audience when he affirms, "And though my days were never bright, from childhood I liked storms, struggles, deeds of valor, and gratefully review them from this place." As we are caught up in Smetana's forceful music, we gratefully review this Czech affirmation of courageous vitality. Premiering in 1868, the opera serves as an effective Slavic introduction to Russian operas to follow: Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Rubenstein's The Demon and Tchaikovsky's Eugen Onegin."