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 Tsar's Bride (opera) The Tsar's Bride (opera) The Tsar's Bride (, "Tsarskaya nevesta") is an opera in four acts by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the composer's tenth opera. The libretto, by Ilia Tyumenev, is based on the drama of the same name by Lev Mey. Mey's play was first suggested to the composer as an opera subject in 1868 by Mily Balakirev. (Alexander Borodin, too, once toyed with the idea.) However, the opera was not composed until thirty years later, in 1898. The first performance of the opera took place in 1899 at the Moscow theater of the Private Opera of S.I. Mamontov. Rimsky-Korsakov himself