Bedřich Smetana Bedřich Smetana Bedřich Smetana (; 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his opera "The Bartered Bride" and for the symphonic cycle "Má vlast" ("My Homeland"), which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native country and contains the famous symphonic poem "The Moldau". Smetana was naturally gifted as a composer, and gave his first public
The Bartered Bride Theatre company in Vienna, as part of the Vienna Music and Theatre Exhibition of 1892, where its favourable reception was the beginning of its worldwide popularity among opera audiences. Since the Czech language was not widely spoken, international performances tended to be in German. The United States premiere took place at the Haymarket Theatre, Chicago, on 20 August 1893. The opera was introduced to the Hamburg State Opera in 1894 by Gustav Mahler, then serving as its director; a year later a German company brought a production to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. In 1897, after his appointment