The Bartered Bride romantic comedy. Thus on its opening night the opera, in its two-act version with spoken dialogue, was poorly attended and indifferently received. Receipts failed to cover costs, and the theatre director was forced to pay Smetana's fee from his own pocket. Smetana's friend Josef Srb-Debrnov, who was unable to attend the performance himself, canvassed opinion from members of the audience as they emerged. "One praised it, another shook his head, and one well-known musician ... said to me: 'That's no comic opera; it won't do. The opening chorus is fine but I don't care for the rest.'" Josef Krejčí, a
A Bride from the Bush Raffles. When he published the novel "Peccavi" in 1900, a critic from "The Advertiser" wrote a scathing review, writing that Hornung should go back to Australia so he would be inspired to write something as good as "A Bride from the Bush" again. Upon Hornung's death, a tribute in "The Freeman's Journal" called "A Bride from the Bush" "the best and the best known" of Hornung's Australia-related stories. In 1924 André Cœuroy and Theodore Baker argued in "The Musical Quarterly" that Hornung's characterisation of the novel's hero as being pitiable for being unable to appreciate anthems demonstrates that "A Bride