The bartered bride

"Nikolaus Harnoncourt starts promisingly with a lively Overture ... But elsewhere, Harnoncourt seeks to impose on this charming descendant of Zar und Zimmermann and Martha a weight it cannot bear ... These ponderous speeds affect the singers ... The DVD is a semi-staging on part of an old fairground ride. The characters sing without scores but of course movement is restricted".

"Vurdering: IRR outstanding" - "This new version ... needs to be special to compete. It is ... None [of the singers], I suspect, will be a household name outside the Czech-speaking nations, and yet they bring this wonderful, heart-rending and joyous opera into our homes ... with a verve and immediacy that I find completely captivating ... Certainly, the soloist's authentic national spirit appears to have infected the BBC Singers and the players of the BBC Symphony Orchestra ... I haven't enjoyed an opera recording as much all year".

"Belohlavek ... has something of Wolfgang Sawallisch's temperament: intelligent, alert but observing the music from an objective mid-distance ... He's at odds with this opera's folksy tale ... Even chestnuts such as the famous Overture lack that extra edge of vitality often heard elsewhere ... Aside from Dana Buresova, who comes to the role of Marenka as a Smetana specialist whose every phrase has a ring of truth, much of the rest of this restrained cast comes off as second-string voices".