The Bartered Bride Bride" is strictly accurate, but the more euphonious "Bartered Bride" has been adopted throughout the English-speaking world. Sabina evidently did not fully appreciate Smetana's intention to write a full-length opera, later commenting: "If I had suspected what Smetana would make of my operetta, I should have taken more pains and written him a better and more solid libretto." The Czech music specialist John Tyrrell has observed that, despite the casual way in which "The Bartered Bride's" libretto was put together, it has an intrinsic "Czechness", being one of the few in the Czech language written in trochees (a stressed syllable
The Bartered Bride at the church fair ("Let's rejoice and be merry"). Among them are Mařenka and Jeník. Mařenka is unhappy because her parents want her to marry someone she has never met. They will try to force her into this, she says. Her desires are for Jeník even though, as she explains in her aria "If I should ever learn", she knows nothing of his background. The couple then declare their feelings for each other in a passionate love duet ("Faithful love can't be marred"). As the pair leave separately, Mařenka's parents, Ludmila and Krušina, enter with the marriage broker Kecal. After