The Bartered Bride and the German-language version continues to be played and recorded. A German film of the opera was made in 1932 by Max Ophüls. Until the middle 1850s Bedřich Smetana was known in Prague principally as a teacher, pianist and composer of salon pieces. His failure to achieve wider recognition in the Bohemian capital led him to depart in 1856 for Sweden, where he spent the next five years. During this period he extended his compositional range to large-scale orchestral works in the descriptive style championed by Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. Liszt was Smetana's long-time mentor; he had accepted a
Bride of the Wind Bride of the Wind Bride of the Wind is a 2001 period drama directed by Academy Award-nominee Bruce Beresford and written by first-time screenwriter Marilyn Levy. Loosely based on the life of Alma Mahler, "Bride of the Wind" recounts Alma's marriage to the composer Gustav Mahler and her romantic liasions. The title of the film alludes to a painting by Oskar Kokoschka named "Die Windsbraut", literally meaning "The Bride of the Wind", though often translated as "The Tempest". The artist dedicated this painting to Alma Mahler. The film met a hostile reception from most critics and did poorly at the