Pauline von Metternich to the music circles of Vienna and Paris. Thanks to Pauline, Smetana's comic opera "The Bartered Bride" was produced in Vienna in 1892, to popular acclaim. She also organised salon performances of abridged versions of many famous operas, including Richard Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen", in which she took part both as a stage director and singer. The composer Karl Michael Ziehrer dedicated her one of his dances. In her private life, however, Pauline suffered several crises and disasters. As a child, she was an eyewitness to the bloody Revolution of 1848 in Vienna. In 1870 she remained at the
The Bartered Bride Theatre company in Vienna, as part of the Vienna Music and Theatre Exhibition of 1892, where its favourable reception was the beginning of its worldwide popularity among opera audiences. Since the Czech language was not widely spoken, international performances tended to be in German. The United States premiere took place at the Haymarket Theatre, Chicago, on 20 August 1893. The opera was introduced to the Hamburg State Opera in 1894 by Gustav Mahler, then serving as its director; a year later a German company brought a production to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. In 1897, after his appointment