Bedřich Smetana himself into the musical life of the city, primarily as a champion of the new genre of Czech opera. In 1866 his first two operas, "The Brandenburgers in Bohemia" and "The Bartered Bride", were premiered at Prague's new Provisional Theatre, the latter achieving great popularity. In that same year, Smetana became the theatre's principal conductor, but the years of his conductorship were marked by controversy. Factions within the city's musical establishment considered his identification with the progressive ideas of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner inimical to the development of a distinctively Czech opera style. This opposition interfered with his creative
Czech name Czech name Czech names are composed of a given name and a surname. Czechs typically get one given name – additional names may be chosen by themselves upon baptism but they generally use one. With marriage, the bride typically adopts the bridegroom's surname. In the Czech Republic, names are simply known as "jména" ("names") or, if the context requires it, "křestní jména" ("Baptism names"). The singular form is "jméno". Generally, a given name may have Christian roots or traditional Slavic pre-Christian origin (e.g. Milena, Dobromira, Jaroslav, Václav, Vojtěch). In the past, it was common to give only officially recognized names