The Bartered Bride as "a tour de force of the genre, wonderfully spirited & wonderfully crafted." Tyrrell draws attention to several of its striking features – its extended string fugato, climactic tutti and prominent syncopations. The overture does not contain many of the opera's later themes: biographer Brian Large compares it to Mozart's overtures to "The Marriage of Figaro" and "The Magic Flute", in establishing a general mood. It is followed immediately by an extended orchestral prelude, for which Smetana adapted part of his 1849 piano work "Wedding Scenes", adding special effects such as bagpipe imitations. Schonberg has suggested that Bohemian composers express
The Cunning Peasant The Cunning Peasant The Cunning Peasant ("Šelma sedlák" in Czech) is an opera by Antonín Dvořák. The Czech-language libretto is by Josef Otakar Veselý. "The Cunning Peasant" was written at a time when there was a lack of high-quality Czech dramatic writers. In his 1995 notes to the Supraphon recording, Milan Pospíšil indicates that Veselý did not solve that problem. His libretto demonstrates talent but also uncritical self-confidence and recycles traditional plot elements and even the names of characters. Both Jeník and Václav, for example, are based on models with similar names in "The Bartered Bride". The influence of the