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 Cunning Peasant The Cunning Peasant The Cunning Peasant ("Šelma sedlák" in Czech) is an opera by Antonín Dvořák. The Czech-language libretto is by Josef Otakar Veselý. "The Cunning Peasant" was written at a time when there was a lack of high-quality Czech dramatic writers. In his 1995 notes to the Supraphon recording, Milan Pospíšil indicates that Veselý did not solve that problem. His libretto demonstrates talent but also uncritical self-confidence and recycles traditional plot elements and even the names of characters. Both Jeník and Václav, for example, are based on models with similar names in "The Bartered Bride". The influence of the