Word: martinu
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Czech Composer Bohuslav Martinu wrote a slapstick one-act opera in 1937 called Comedy on the Bridge. It was a satire on war, and everybody had a good time when they heard the Prague radio premiere that year. Says Expatriate Martinu, sad-eyed, 60, and full of memories of Munich and its aftermath: "Six months later, I could not have written...
Last week the Opera Workshop of Manhattan's Mannes School of Music honored Martinu, its most distinguished faculty member, with two bang-up performances -the first in the U.S.-of his old one-acter. Most startled with its success was Martinu himself, who had always considered the work purely a Czech chuckle. His one admonition to the Workshop group was: "Keep it a comedy." A cast of eight expert singers, accompanied by a chamber orchestra, played the well-scored opera as a near-burlesque...
What I tried to express was my belief that not all Czech music is great music. As a Czech, I could hardly dismiss such composers as Smetana, Dvorak, Janacek and Martinu...