The Bartered Bride following months Sabina was encouraged to develop this into a full-length text, and to provide a Czech translation. According to Smetana's biographer Brian Large, this process was prolonged and untidy; the manuscript shows amendments and additions in Smetana's own hand, and some pages apparently written by Smetana's wife Bettina (who may have been receiving dictation). By the end of 1863 a two-act version, with around 20 musical numbers separated by spoken dialogue, had been assembled. Smetana's diary indicates that he, rather than Sabina, chose the work's title because "the poet did not know what to call it." The translation "Sold
The Bartered Bride as director of the Vienna State Opera, Mahler brought "The Bartered Bride" into the Vienna repertory, and conducted regular performances of the work between 1899 and 1907. Mahler's enthusiasm for the work was such that he had incorporated a quote from the overture into the final movement of his First Symphony (1888). When he became Director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1907 he added the opera to its repertory. The New York premiere, again in German, took place on 19 February 1909, and was warmly received. "The New York Times" commented on the excellence of the staging