The National Theatre

On 15 May 1899, Mahler attended a performance of Smetana’s Libuše at the National Theatre, then he saw Fibich’s Šárka there on the 16th.

“Incidentally, I have been to the Czech National Theatre several times, where I have heard various things by Smetana, Glinka, and Dvořák, and I must say that the former in particular seems very remarkable to me. Although his operas will never become part of the repertoire in Germany, it would still be worth the effort to introduce such an original, individual composer to a cultivated public like in Leipzig”, he remarked on his visits to the Czech theatre that was still just 18 years old.

A week later, Mahler conducted music by Smetana along with works by Wagner and Beethoven at the opening of a series of concerts on the occasion of the Jubilee Exhibition of the Prague Chamber of Commerce and Trade at the Holešovice Exhibition Grounds.

“Mahler brought an ecstatic charge even to the overture to Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, introducing here and there an alien quality. Music that babbles and gushes like a limpid mountain spring began, under his fiery gaze, to glow and phosphoresce, taking on the character of an orgy that banishes any thought of rustic good humour and instead excites all the motoric sensations of pleasure in the modern psyche. There was no need for any sense of national affinity to be irresistibly swept away. Mahler and the Prague audience will surely long remember this evening”, despite some overly eager timpani in the Beethoven symphony and a waiter who created a disturbance “during Isolde’s sighs of desire, running in front of rows of seats with a glass of beer looking for the person to serve it to”.

In 1909, Mahler conducted Smetana’s work at New York’s Metropolitan Opera with Emmy Destinn in the role of Mařenka. In 1910, he conducted Dvořák’s New World Symphony in the same city.

Now our sixth Mahler stop requires music from his Sixth Symphony.