The Devil and Kate 12.2.2006 -
Čert a Káča (The Devil and Kate), one of the last operas composed by Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904), was premiered in 1899 in the National Theatre. The libretto to this charming fairytale opera - a genre with meagre representation in Czech operatic literature - was written by Adolf Wenig based on a folk fairytale by Božena Němcová. Dvořák succeeded in illustrating the contrasting fantastic and folk scenes masterfully. The successful staging from 1990 has returned to the stage of the National Theatre including its magical sets and costumes designed by the well-known visual artist Adolf Born.
Author: Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904)
Dvořák was born in Nelahozeves near Prague (today the Czech Republic) where he spent most of his life. He studied music in Prague's only Organ School at the end of the 1850s, and slowly developed himself as an accomplished violinist and violist. Throughout the 1860s he played viola in the Bohemian Provisional Theater Orchestra, which was from 1866 conducted by Bedřich Smetana. The need to supplement his income by teaching left Dvorák with limited free time, and in 1871 he gave up the orchestra in order to compose. He fell in love with one of his pupils and wrote a song cycle, Cypress Trees, expressing his anguish at her marriage to another man. However, he soon overcame his despondency and in 1873 married her sister, Anna Cermakova.
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