from Part II - Across Frontiers
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2020
This chapter focuses on the politics of Carmen reception in Prague between 1880 and 1945. During this period, Carmen was performed not only in Czech, at the National and Vinohrady Theatres, but also in German, at the Estates Theatre and later also the New German Theatre. Due to the opera’s enormous popularity, various Prague productions often featured famous international Carmen performers and notable conductors, such as Blech, Zemlinsky, and Szell. Prague’s critics discussed Czech and German performances of Carmen not only in terms of artistic issues, but Carmen criticism also became a site of nationalistic debates. Although Carmenis a French opera, in Prague, it was often discussed in connection to Czech and German cultural politics. Whereas a group of Czech and German critics approached Carmen as a progressive, proto-Czech or quasi-Germanic opera, other critical reactions were mostly negative, viewing it as too cosmopolitan and an immoral, commercial anathema to national art.
Prague, National Theatre Archive, Music Department
Der Auftakt
Bohemia
Dalibor
Květy
Lidové noviny
Národní listy
Prager Abendblatt
Prager Tagblatt
Krásnohorská, Eliška, trans. Carmen: Opera o čtyřech jednáních. Dle novely Mériméeovy od Meilhaca a Halévyho [Carmen: Opera in Four Acts. Based on Mérimée’s novel by Meilhac and Halévy]. Prague, Urbánek, 1884.
Smrčka, Otakar, trans. Carmen: Opera o čtyřech jednáních. Dle novely Prospera Mérimée. Napsali Henri Meilhac a Ludovic Halévy [Carmen: Opera in Four Acts. Based on a novel by Prosper Mérimée. Written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy]. Prague, Umělecká beseda, 1908.
[Hopp, Julius, trans.] Carmen. Vienna, Universal Edition, 1875.
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