Zdenek Kosler

For Czech audiences, arias from The Bartered Bride, this jewel of Czech classical opera production from the pen of Bedřich Smetana, represent truly popular, indeed timeless tunes. Supraphon is now launching this famous comic opera back onto the market, in a version featuring star performances of international stars Gabriela Beňačková as Mařenka, Peter Dvorský as Jeník, and Richard Novák as Kecal. Playing on an equally brilliant form here was the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zdeněk Košler, backed by the vocal forces of the Prague Philharmonic Choir.

In May 1876, even before the premiere of The Kiss, eliška Krásnohorská offered Smetana a subject that combined a story set in a folk environment with elements of fairy tale, magic, and superstition. The action was very complicated, and the material was not used, but certain motifs from it found their way into the libretto for their next opera together, The Secret. Like in The Bartered Bride, the story features two peasants with differing personalities. Atmosphere is provided by the mysterious surroundings of the ruins of old Bezděz Castle, and the plot’s various snares and pitfalls combine a realistic story with a tall tale. Old love amounts to a powerful motif. Somewhere below Bezděz Castle live two widowers, Kalina and Malina, who bear a mutual grudge for reasons lying in the distant past, when the poor man Kalina asked for the hand of Róza, the rich peasant Malina’s sister, but he was rejected by her family. He then married a poor girl, and because he was industrious and, above all, defiant, he managed to build a house, which is just about to be finished.

Zdeněk Košler was a Czechoslovakian conductor who was known for his interpretations of Central European opera and orchestral music. He conducted over 60 orchestras around the world and was a major musical influence in Slovakia. Košler was born into a musical family in 1928, and had one younger brother, Miroslav, who also became a respected conductor. His father, Vaclav Košler, was a violist in the National Theater Orchestra of Prague, and his mother, Malvina Katzova, was a singer. Both parents contributed to Košler's early musical education with violin and voice lessons.

Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus spoke Zarathustra), a tone poem after Friedrich Nietzsche, was written in 1896, during the period Strauss spent as conductor at the opera in his native city of Munich. It is based on the rhapsodic expression of Nietzsche's highly personal philosophy; Strauss makes use of an unusually large orchestra, deployed in the most varied way. In this recording, the orchestra shows a high degree of brilliance.

Věra Soukupová, Karel Průša, Václav Zítek (vocalist), Bohuslav Maršík, Eva Hlobilová, Jaroslav Horáček, Oldřich Spisar (vocalist), Daniela Šounová-Brouková, Leo Marian Vodička, Alfréd Hampel, Pavel Horáček, Drahomíra Drobková, Dalibor Jedlička, Marie Veselá, Karel Hanuš, Miroslav Švejda Prague National Theatre Orchestra, Prague National Theatre Chorus, Zdenek Kosler, Milan Malý

The Czech Philharmonic is the leading symphonic ensemble in the musically rich Czech Republic, with a long history of definitive performances and recordings of Czech repertory. The orchestra has sometimes found itself a topic of political contention as the waves of European history have swept across its homeland. Like many other Central European orchestras, the Czech Philharmonic (the Czech name since 2015 is Česká filharmonie, and the word "orchestra" is no longer part of its name) began as a theater orchestra: a group of orchestral musicians at the Prague National Theatre named themselves the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in 1894, and in two years, the wisdom of the move became apparent when Dvořák conducted the group in a concert of his own works. By 1901, the Philharmonic was a fully independent entity, and it quickly gained renown beyond Czech borders; Mahler conducted the orchestra in the world premiere of his Symphony No. 7 in 1908. The most important among the orchestra's early conductors was Vaclav Talich, who held the post of principal conductor for most of the period between 1919 and 1941.

The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra is the leading symphonic ensemble in the musically rich Czech Republic, with a long history of definitive performances and recordings of Czech repertory. The orchestra has sometimes found itself a topic of political contention as the waves of European history have swept across its homeland. Like many other Central European orchestras, the Czech Philharmonic began as a theater orchestra: a group of orchestral musicians at the Prague National Theatre named themselves the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in 1894, and in two years the wisdom of the move became apparent when Dvořák conducted the group in a concert of his own works.

The opera Libuše occupies a unique position in Czech national culture. Smetana composed it as a festive opera to be performed on occasions celebrating the Czech nation. The first such was theopening of the National Theatre in Prague in 1881, when the work was premiered. Supraphon's catalogue already contains CDs of Smetana's Libuše in two live complete recordings documenting the interpretational mastery of the artists associated with the National Theatre: the legendary recording of the performance in 1983 marking the reopening of the theatre after its reconstruction andfeaturing Gabriela Beňačková in the lead role, and the 1995 recording of the new production of Libuše at the National, when the lead role was undertaken by Eva Urbanová.