Otakar Hostinský Otakar Hostinský Otakar Hostinský (2 January 1847, Martiněves (near Litoměřice) – 19 January 1910, Prague) was a Czech historian, musicologist, and professor of musical aesthetics. He is known primarily for his support of composer Bedřich Smetana and his contributions to Czech aesthetic theory, which influenced many cultural figures in early twentieth-century Prague, including Zdeněk Nejedlý, Otakar Zich, and Vladimír Helfert. He also wrote the opera librettos to Zdeněk Fibich's masterpiece, "The Bride of Messina", and Josef Rozkosný's "Cinderella". "Art and Nationality", 1869 "Wagnerianism and Czech National Identity", 1870 "On "Program" Music", 1873 "Das Musikalisch-Schöne und das Gesamtkunstwerk vom Standpunkte der
The Bartered Bride created music considered by Czechs to be quintessentially Czech in spirit. The overture, often played as a concert piece independently from the opera, was, unusually, composed before almost any of the other music had been written. After a performance at the Vienna Music and Theatre Exhibition of 1892, the opera achieved international recognition. It was performed in Chicago in 1893, London in 1895 and reached New York in 1909, subsequently becoming the first, and for many years the only, Czech opera in the general repertory. Many of these early international performances were in German, under the title "Die verkaufte Braut",