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 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