The bride is sold, not bartered — despite the English title by which we have always recognised Smetana’s Prodaná Nevesta. The people are poor, and not that happy — despite the joyous strains of that opening chorus. Smudge the inconvenient truths in this slice of Ol’ Bohemia and you’re landed with an overlong pantomime; strike out the local colour in favour of social grit and you end up with heavy-handed diatribe.
So what’s the answer for those of us who weren’t weaned on Má vlast and don’t know our skocnas from our polkas? Well, Mid Wales Opera have come up with a solution: come on boyos, this is really about us. And, rather astonishingly, it works. Marenka, the feisty heroine, becomes Myfanwy; Jenik, her mysterious beau, is recast as Joseph — whose tragic past, we are told in Amanda Holden’s excellent translation, includes being “brought up on a farm in England”. Horrors.
And those troublesome Czech dances and choruses? Whichever Welsh town we are in for Stephen Medcalf’s witty and wise staging, it’s one where communal celebrations come naturally. The first ensemble becomes a fraught rehearsal before an Eistedfodd, while the second act furiant is hilariously reconceived as boisterous rugby drinks for Joseph and the lads, including the odd, good-natured chunder.
But we’re always aware of the darker motivations. Grim backcloths aptly depict the grinding poverty of a community where Kecal, the greasy marriage broker (here smoothly eliding into Simon Wilding’s splendidly native “Kettle”), is all too plausible, and the agonising of Myfanwy’s parents — in debt to the perfidious English, and in thrall to Kettle’s insidiousness — is sensitively highlighted.
Mid Wales Opera are bringing two Josephs and Myfwanys on their autumn tour, and the couple I heard were more than up to the task. Michael Bracegirdle throws himself into his high-lying role with heroic abandon and cuts a rogueish figure; Mairead Buicke’s Myfanwy is a spunky lass with a voice of steely velvet. In the pit, Keith Darlington keeps a firm but fair hand on a treacherous score, and the small forces of the company’s chamber orchestra sound full of beans. “Life is short, we’re well aware,” sing the chorus: it’s true, but make some time for this production.
www.midwalesopera.co.uk