How rich is Bedrich Smetana in 2024?

Bedrich Smetana Net Worth

How rich is Bedrich Smetana? For this question we spent 20 hours on research (Wikipedia, Youtube, we read books in libraries, etc) to review the post.

The main source of income: Musicians
Total Net Worth at the moment 2024 year – is about $67,7 Million.

Youtube

Biography

Bedrich Smetana information Birth date: March 2, 1824 Birth place: Litomysl, Bohemia, Austria [now Czech Republic] Profession:Soundtrack, Music Department, Composer

Height, Weight:

How tall is Bedrich Smetana – 1,84m.
How much weight is Bedrich Smetana – 67kg

Pictures

Wiki

Biography,Family background and childhoodBedrich Smetana was born as Friedrich Smetana on 2 March 1824, in Litomysl, east of Prague near the traditional border between Bohemia and Moravia, then provinces of the Habsburg Empire. He was the third child, and first son, of Frantisek Smetana and his third wife Barbora Lynkova. Frantisek had fathered eight children in two earlier marriages, five daughters surviving infancy, he and Barbora had ten more children, of whom seven reached adulthood. At this time, under Habsburg rule, German was the official language of Bohemia. Frantisek knew Czech but, for business and social reasons, rarely used it, and his children were ignorant of the correct literary Czech until much later in their lives.Frantisek Smetana (1832). Portrait by Antonin MachekThe Smetana family came from the Hradec Kralove region of Bohemia. Frantisek had initially learned the trade of a brewer, and had acquired moderate wealth during the Napoleonic Wars by supplying clothing and provisions to the French Army. He subsequently managed several breweries before coming to Litomysl in 1823 as brewer to Count Waldstein, whose Renaissance castle dominates the town.The elder Smetana, although uneducated, had a natural gift for music and played in a string quartet. Bedrich was introduced to music by his father and in October 1830, at the age of six, gave his first public performance. At a concert held in Litomysls Philosophical Academy he played a piano arrangement of Aubers overture to La muette de Portici, to a rapturous reception. In 1831 the family moved to Jindrichuv Hradec in the south of Bohemia – the region where, a generation later, Gustav Mahler grew up. Here, Smetana attended the local elementary school and later the gymnasium. He also studied violin and piano, discovering the works of Mozart and Beethoven, and began composing simple pieces, of which one, a dance (Kvapicek, or Little Galop), survives in sketch form.In 1835, Frantisek retired to a farm in the south-eastern region of Bohemia. There being no suitable local school, Smetana was sent to the gymnasium at Jihlava, where he was homesick and unable to study. He then transferred to the Premonstratensian school at Nemecky Brod, where he was happier and made good progress. Among the friends he made here was the future Czech revolutionary poet Karel Havlicek, whose departure for Prague in 1838 may have influenced Smetanas own desire to experience life in the capital. The following year, with Frantiseks approval, he enrolled at Pragues Academic Grammar School under Josef Jungmann, a distinguished poet and linguist who was a leading figure in the movement for Czech national revival.[11]Apprentice musicianFirst stepsSmetana arrived in Prague in the autumn of 1839. Finding Jungmanns school uncongenial (he was mocked by his classmates for his country manners),[11] he soon began missing classes. He attended concerts, visited the opera, listened to military bands and joined an amateur string quartet for whom he composed simple pieces.[11] After Liszt gave a series of piano recitals in the city, Smetana became convinced that he would find satisfaction only in a musical career.[11] He confided to his journal that he wanted to become a Mozart in composition and a Liszt in technique.[12][13] However, the Prague idyll ended when Frantisek discovered his sons truancy, and removed him from the city.[11] Frantisek at this time saw music as a diverting pastime, not as a career choice. Smetana was placed temporarily with his uncle in Nove Mesto, where he enjoyed a brief romance with his cousin Louisa. He commemorated their passion in Louisas Polka, Smetanas earliest complete composition that has survived.[14]An older cousin, Josef Smetana, a teacher at the Premonstratensian School in Plzen (Pilsen), then offered to supervise the boys remaining schooling, and in the summer of 1840 Smetana departed for Plzen. He remained there until he completed his schooling in 1843. His skills as a pianist were in great demand at the towns many soirees, and he enjoyed a hectic social life.[13] This included a number of romances, the most important of which was with Katerina Kolarova, whom he had known briefly in his early childhood. Smetana was entirely captivated with her, writing in his journal: When I am not with her I am sitting on hot coals and have no peace.[15] He composed several pieces for her, among which are two Quadrilles, a song duet, and an incomplete piano study for the left hand.[16] He also composed his first orchestral piece, a B-flat minuet.[17]Student and teacherBy the time Smetana completed his schooling, his fathers fortunes had declined. Although Frantisek now agreed that his son should follow a musical career, he could not provide financial support.[13][16] In August 1843 Smetana departed for Prague with twenty gulden,[18][19] and no immediate prospects.[20] Lacking any formal musical training, he needed a teacher, and was introduced by Katerina Kolarovas mother to Josef Proksch, head of the Prague Music Institute – where Katerina was now studying.[16] Proksch used the most modern teaching methods, drawing on Beethoven, Chopin, Berlioz and the Leipzig circle of Liszt. In January 1844 Proksch agreed to take Smetana as a pupil, and at the same time the young musicians financial difficulties were eased when he secured an appointment as music teacher to the family of a nobleman, Count Thun.For the next three years, besides teaching piano to the Thun children, Smetana studied theory and composition under Proksch. The works he composed in these years include songs, dances, bagatelles, impromptus and the G minor Piano Sonata.[21] In 1846 Smetana attended concerts given in Prague by Berlioz, and in all likelihood met the French composer at a reception arranged by Proksch.[22] At the home of Count Thun he met Robert and Clara Schumann, and showed them his G minor sonata, but failed to win their approval for this work—they detected too much of Berlioz in it. Meanwhile, his friendship with Katerina blossomed. In June 1847, on resigning his position in the Thun household, Smetana recommended her as his replacement. He then set out on a tour of Western Bohemia, hoping to establish a reputation as a concert pianist.[23]Early careerRevolutionarySmetanas concert tour to Western Bohemia was poorly supported, so he abandoned it and returned to Prague, where he made a living from private pupils and occasional appearances as an accompanist in chamber concerts.[22] He also began work on his first major orchestral work, the Overture in D major.[24]A depiction of the barricades on the Charles Bridge, Prague, 1848. Smetana was briefly a participant in the uprising.For a brief period in 1848, Smetana was a revolutionary. In the climate of political change and upheaval that swept through Europe in that year, a pro-democracy movement in Prague led by Smetanas old friend Karel Havlicek was urging an end to Habsburg absolutist rule and for more political autonomy.[25] A Citizens Army (Svornost) was formed to defend the city against possible attack. Smetana wrote a series of patriotic works, including two marches dedicated respectively to the Czech National Guard and the Students Legion of the University of Prague, and The Song of Freedom to words by Jan Kollar.[26] In June 1848, as the Habsburg armies moved to suppress rebellious tendencies, Prague came under attack from the Austrian forces led by the Prince of Windisch-Gratz. As a member of Svornost, Smetana helped to man the barricades on the Charles Bridge.[25] The nascent uprising was quickly crushed, but Smetana avoided the imprisonment or exile received by leaders such as Havlicek.[25] During his brief spell with Svornost, he met the writer and leading radical, Karel Sabina, who would later provide libretti for Smetanas first two operas.[25]Piano InstituteEarly in 1848, Smetana wrote to Franz Liszt, whom he had not yet met, asking him to accept the dedication of a new piano work, Six Characteristic Pieces, and recommend it to a publisher. He also requested a loan of 400 gulden, to enable him to open a music school. Liszt replied cordially, accepting the dedication and promising to help find a publisher, but he offered no financial assistance.[27][28] This encouragement was the beginning of a friendship that was of great value to Smetana in his subsequent career.[29] Despite Liszts lack of financial support, Smetana was able to start a Piano Institute in late August 1848, with twelve students.[30] After a period of struggle the Institute began to flourish and became briefly fashionable, particularly among supporters of Czech nationalism in whose eyes Smetana was developing a reputation. Proksch wrote of Smetanas support for his peoples cause, and said that he could well become the transformer of my ideas in the Czech language.[31] In 1849 the Institute was relocated to the home of Katerinas parents, and began to attract distinguished visitors, Liszt came regularly, and the former Austrian emperor Ferdinand, who had settled in Prague, attended the schools matinee concerts.[31] Smetanas performances in these concerts became a recognised feature of Pragues musical life. In this time of relative financial stability Smetana married Katerina, on 27 August 1849. Four daughters were born to the couple between 1851 and 1855.[28]Budding composerIn 1850, notwithstanding his revolutionary sentiments, Smetana accepted the post of Court Pianist in Ferdinands establishment in Prague Castle.[26][31] He continued teaching in the Piano Institute, and devoted himself increasingly to composition. His works, mainly for the piano, included the three-part Wedding Scenes, some of the music of which was later used in The Bartered Bride.[32] He also wrote numerous short experimental pieces collected under the name Album Leaves, and a series of polkas.[32] During 1853–54 he worked on a major orchestral piece, the Triumphal Symphony, composed to commemorate the wedding of Emperor Franz Joseph.[28] The symphony was rejected by the Imperial Court, possibly on the grounds that the brief musical references to the Austrian national anthem were not sufficiently prominent. Undeterred, Smetana hired an orchestra at his own expense to perform the symphony at the Konvikt Hall in Prague on 26 February 1855. The work was coolly received, and the concert was a financial failure.[33]Private sorrows and professional disenchantmentAn oil portrait of Smetana, 1854, by Geskel SalomanIn the years between 1854 and 1856 Smetana suffered a series of personal blows. In July 1854 his second daughter, Gabriela, died of tuberculosis. A year later his eldest daughter Bedriska, who at the age of four was showing signs of musical precocity, died of scarlet fever.[34] Smetana wrote his Piano Trio in G minor as a tribute to her memory, it was performed in Prague on 3 December 1855 and, according to the composer, was received harshly by the critics, although Liszt praised it.[35] Smetanas sorrows continued, just after Bedriskas death a fourth daughter, Katerina, had been born but she, too, died in June 1856. By this time Smetanas wife Katerina had also been diagnosed with tuberculosis.[34]In July 1856, Smetana received news of the death in exile of his revolutionary friend Karel Havlicek.[36] The political climate in Prague was a further source of gloom, hopes of a more enlightened government and social reform following Franz Josephs accession in 1848 had faded as Austrian absolutism reasserted itself under Baron Alexander von Bach.[36] Despite the good name of the Piano Institute, Smetanas status as a concert pianist was generally considered to be below that of contemporaries such as Alexander Dreyschock.[36] Critics acknowledged Smetanas delicate, crystalline touch, closer in style to Chopin than Liszt, but believed that his physical frailty was a serious drawback to his concert-playing ambitions.[32] His main performance success during this period was his playing of Mozarts D minor Piano Concerto at a concert celebrating the centenary of Mozarts birth, in January 1856.[36] His disenchantment with Prague was growing and, perhaps influenced by Dreyschocks accounts of opportunities to be found in Sweden, Smetana decided to seek success there. On 11 October 1856, after writing to his parents that Prague did not wish to acknowledge me, so I left it, he departed for Gothenburg.[37]Years of travelGothenburgSmetana initially went to Gothenburg without Katerina. Writing to Liszt, he said that the people there were musically unsophisticated, but he saw this as an opportunity …for an impact I could never have achieved in Prague.[37] Within a few weeks of his arrival, he had given his first recital, opened a music school that was rapidly overwhelmed by applications,[38] and become conductor of the Gothenburg Society for Classical Choral Music.[38] In a few months Smetana had achieved both professional and social recognition in the city, although he found little time for composition, two intended orchestral works, provisionally entitled Frithjof and The Vikings Voyage, were sketched but abandoned.[39]Gothenburg, Sweden, Smetanas base between 1856 and 1861In summer 1857, Smetana came home to Prague and found Katerina in failing health. In June, Smetanas father Frantisek died.[40] That autumn Smetana returned to Gothenburg, with Katerina and their surviving daughter Zofie, but before doing so he visited Liszt in Weimar. The occasion was the Karl August Goethe-Schiller Jubilee celebrations, Smetana attended performances of Liszts Faust Symphony and the symphonic poem Die Ideale, which invigorated and inspired him.[41] Liszt was Smetanas principal teacher throughout the latters creative life, and at this time was crucially able to revive his spirits and rescue him from the relative artistic isolation of Gothenburg.[37]Back in Sweden, Smetana found among his new pupils a young housewife, Frojda Benecke, who briefly became his muse and his mistress. In her honour Smetana transcribed two songs from Schuberts Die schone Mullerin cycle, and transformed one of his own early piano pieces into a polka entitled Vision at the Ball.[42] He also began composing on a more expansive scale. In 1858 he completed the symphonic poem Richard III, his first major orchestral composition since the Triumphal Symphony. He followed this with Wallensteins Camp, inspired by Friedrich Schillers Wallenstein drama trilogy,[43] and began a third symphonic poem Hakon Jarl, based on the tragic drama by Danish poet Adam Oehlenschlager.[44] Smetana also wrote two large-scale piano works: Macbeth and the Witches, and an Etude in C in the style of Liszt.[45]Bereavement, remarriage and return to PraguePolka in A minor from Memories of Bohemia in Polka Form, Op. 12, 1859Piano: Veronika PtackovaProblems playing this file? See media help.Katerinas health gradually worsened and in the spring of 1859 failed completely. Homeward bound, she died at Dresden on 19 April 1859. Smetana wrote that she had died gently, without our knowing anything until the quiet drew my attention to her.[46] After placing Zofie with Katerinas mother, Smetana spent time with Liszt in Weimar, where he was introduced to the music of the comic opera Der Barbier von Bagdad, by Liszts pupil Peter Cornelius.[47] This work would influence Smetanas own later career as an opera composer.[48] Later that year he stayed with his younger brother Karel, and fell in love with Karels sister-in-law Barbora (Bettina) Ferdinandiova, sixteen years his junior. He proposed marriage, and having secured her promise returned to Gothenburg for the 1859–60 winter.[37] The marriage took place the following year, on 10 July 1860, after which Smetana and his new wife returned to Sweden for a final season. This culminated in April 1861 with a piano performance in Stockholm, attended by the Swedish royal family. The couples first daughter, Zdenka, was born in September 1861.[44]Meanwhile, the defeat of Franz Josephs army at Solferino in 1859 had weakened the Habsburg Empire, and led to the fall from power of von Bach.[49] This had gradually brought a more enlightened atmosphere to Prague, and by 1861 Smetana was seeing prospects of a better future for Czech nationalism and culture.[12][44] Before deciding his own future, in September Smetana set out on a concert tour of the Netherlands and Germany. He was still hoping to secure a reputation as a pianist, but once again he experienced failure.[44] Back in Prague, he conducted performances of Richard III and Wallensteins Camp in the Zofin Island concert hall in January 1862, to a muted reception. Critics accused him of adhering too closely to the New German school represented primarily by Liszt,[50] Smetana responded that a prophet is without honour in his own land.[44] In March 1862 he made a last brief visit to Gothenburg, but the city no longer held his interest, it appeared to him a provincial backwater and, whatever the difficulties, he now determined to seek his musical future in Prague: My home has rooted itself into my heart so much that only there do I find real contentment. It is to this that I will sacrifice myself.[51]National prominenceSeeking recognitionIn 1861, it was announced that a Provisional Theatre would be built in Prague, as a home for Czech opera.[52] Smetana saw this as an opportunity to write and stage opera that would reflect Czech national character, similar to the portrayals of Russian life in Mikhail Glinkas operas.[12] He hoped that he might be considered for the theatres conductorship, but the post went to Jan Nepomuk Mayr, apparently because the conservative faction in charge of the project considered Smetana a dangerous modernist, in thrall to avant garde composers such as Liszt and Wagner.[53][54] Smetana then turned his attention to an opera competition, organised by Count Jan von Harrach, which offered prizes of 600 gulden each for the best comic and historical operas based on Czech culture.[53] With no useful model on which to base his work—Czech opera as a genre scarcely existed—Smetana had to create his own style. He engaged Karel Sabina, his comrade from the 1848 barricades, as his librettist,[55] and received Sabinas text in February 1862, a story of the 13th century invasion of Bohemia by Otto of Brandenburg. In April 1863 he submitted the score, under the title of The Brandenburgers in Bohemia.[55][56]Prague Conservatoire (modern photograph): Smetanas bid to become its director failed.At this stage in his career, Smetanas command of the Czech language was poor. His generation of Czechs was educated in German,[57] and he had difficulty expressing himself in what was supposedly his native tongue.[56] To overcome these linguistic deficiencies he studied Czech grammar, and made a point of writing and speaking in Czech every day. He had become Chorus Master of the nationalistic Hlahol Choral Society soon after his return from Sweden, and as his fluency in the Czech language developed he composed patriotic choruses for the Society, The Three Riders and The Renegade were performed at concerts in early 1863.[58] In March of that year Smetana was elected president of the music section of Umelecka Beseda, a society for Czech artists.[56] By 1864 he was proficient enough in the Czech language to be appointed as music critic to the main Czech language newspaper Narodni listy.[59] Meanwhile, Bettina had given birth to another daughter, Bozena.[60]On 23 April 1864, Smetana conducted Berliozs choral symphony Romeo et Juliette at a concert celebrating the Shakespeare tercentenary, adding to the programme his own March for the Shakespearean Festival.[53][56] That year, Smetanas bid to become Director of the Prague Conservatory failed. He had set high hopes on this appointment: My friends are trying to persuade me that this post might have been especially created for me, he wrote to a Swedish friend.[61] Again his hopes were thwarted by his association with the perceived radical Liszt, and the appointing committee chose the conservative patriot Josef Krejci for the post.[62]Bedrich Smetana Among his Friends, 1865, oil painting by Frantisek DvorakAlmost three years passed before Smetana was declared the winner of Harrachs opera competition.[53] Before then, on 5 January 1866, The Brandenburgers had been performed to an enthusiastic reception at the Provisional Theatre—over strong opposition from Mayr, who had refused to rehearse or conduct the piece. The idiom was too advanced for Mayrs liking, and the opera was eventually staged under the composers own direction.[53] I was called on stage nine times, Smetana wrote, recording that the house was sold out and that the critics were full of praise.[63] Music historian Rosa Newmarch believes that, although The Brandenburgers has not stood the test of time, it contains all the germs of Smetanas operatic art.[64]Opera maestroIn July 1863, Sabina had delivered the libretto for a second opera, a light comedy entitled The Bartered Bride, which Smetana composed during the next three years. Because of the success of The Brandenburgers, the management of the Provisional Theatre readily agreed to stage the new opera, which was premiered on 30 May 1866 in its original two-act version with spoken dialogue.[56] The opera went through several revisions and restructures before reaching the definitive three-act form that in due course established Smetanas international reputation.[65][66] The operas first performance was a failure, it was held on one of the hottest evenings of the year, on the eve of the Austro-Prussian War, with Bohemia under imminent threat of invasion by Prussian troops. Unsurprisingly the occasion was poorly attended, and receipts failed to cover costs.[67] When presented at the Provisional Theatre in its final form, in September 1870, it was a tremendous public success.[68]Back in 1866, as the composer of The Brandenburgers with its overtones of German military aggression, Smetana thought he might be targeted by the invading Prussians, so he absented himself from Prague until hostilities ceased.[67] He returned in September, and almost immediately achieved a long-standing ambition – appointment as principal conductor of the Provisional Theatre, at an annual salary of 1,200 gulden.[69] In the absence of a body of suitable Czech opera, Smetana in his first season presented standard works by Weber, Mozart, Donizetti, Rossini and Glinka, with a revival of his own Bartered Bride.[65][69] The quality of Smetanas production of Glinkas A Life for the Tsar angered Glinkas champion Mily Balakirev, who expressed himself forcefully. This caused prolonged hostility between the two men.[69][70] On 16 May 1868 Smetana, representing Czech musicians, helped to lay the foundation stone for the future National Theatre,[68] he had written a Festive Overture for the occasion. That same evening Smetanas third opera, Dalibor, was premiered at Pragues New Town Theatre.[56] Although its initial reception was warm its reviews were poor, and Smetana resigned himself to its failure.[71]OppositionEarly in his Provisional Theatre conductorship Smetana had made a powerful enemy in Frantisek Pivoda, the Director of the Prague School of Singing. Formerly a supporter of Smetanas, Pivoda was aggrieved when the conductor recruited singing talent from abroad rather than from Pivodas school.[72][73] In an increasingly bitter public correspondence, Pivoda claimed that Smetana was using his position to further his own career, at the expense of other composers.[74]Pivoda then took issue with Dalibor, calling it an example of extreme Wagnerism and thus, unsuited as a model for Czech national opera.[75] Wagnerism meant the adoption of Wagners theories of a continuous role for the orchestra and the building of an integrated musical drama, rather than a stringing together of lyrical numbers.[56][76] The Provisional Theatres chairman, Frantisek Rieger, had first accused Smetana of Wagnerist tendencies after the first performance of The Brandenburgers,[63] and the issue eventually divided Pragues musical society. The music critic Otakar Hostinsky believed that Wagners theories should be the basis of the national opera, and argued that Dalibor was the beginning of the correct direction. The opposite camp, led by Pivoda, supported the principles of Italian opera, in which the voice rather than the orchestra was the predominant dramatic device.[56]Even within the theatre itself there was division. Rieger led a campaign to eject Smetana from the conductorship and reappoint Mayr, and in December 1872 a petition signed by 86 subscribers to the theatre called for Smetanas resignation.[74] Strong support from vice-chairman Antonin Cisek, and an ultimatum from prominent musicians among whom was Antonin Dvorak, ensured Smetanas survival. In January 1873 he was reappointed, with a bigger salary and increased responsibility as Artistic Director.[56][74]Smetana gradually brought more operas by emergent Czech composers to the theatre, but little of his own work.[74] By 1872 he had completed his monumental fourth opera, Libuse, his most ambitious work to date,[77] but was withholding its premiere for the future opening of the forthcoming National Theatre.[78] The machinations of Pivoda and his supporters distracted Smetana from composition,[74] and he had further vexation when The Bartered Bride was produced in Saint Petersburg, in January 1871. Although the audience was enthusiastic,[74] press reports were hostile, one describing the work as no better than that of a gifted fourteen-year-old boy.[79] Smetana was deeply offended, and blamed his old adversary, Balakirev, for inciting negative feelings against the opera.[79]Final decadeSmetana in about 1883, near the end of his lifeDeafnessIn the respite following his reappointment, Smetana concentrated on his fifth opera, The Two Widows, composed between June 1873 and January 1874.[80] After its first performance at the Provisional Theatre on 27 March 1874, Smetanas supporters presented him with a decorative baton.[56] But his opponents continued to attack him, comparing his conductorship unfavourably with the Mayr regime and claiming that under Smetana Czech opera sickens to death at least once annually.[80] By the summer Smetana was ill, a throat infection was followed by a rash and an apparent blockage to the ears. By mid-August, unable to work, he transferred his duties to his deputy, Adolf Cech. A press announcement stated that Smetana had become ill as a result of nervous strain caused by certain people recently.[80]In September, Smetana told the theatre he would resign his appointment unless his health improved.[81] He had become totally deaf in his right ear, and in October lost all hearing in his left ear also. After his subsequent resignation the theatre offered him an annual pension of 1,200 gulden for the continued right to perform his operas, an arrangement Smetana reluctantly accepted.[82] Money raised in Prague by former students, and by former lover Frojda Benecke in Gothenburg, amounted to 1,244 gulden.[83] This allowed Smetana to seek medical treatment abroad, but to no avail.[56] In January 1875 Smetana wrote in his journal: If my disease is incurable, then I should prefer to be liberated from this life.[84] His spirits were further lowered at this time by a deterioration in his relationship with Bettina, mainly over money matters.[85] I cannot live under the same roof as a person who hates and persecutes me, Smetana informed her.[86] Although divorce was considered, the couple stayed unhappily together.[87]Late floweringIn worsening health, Smetana continued to compose. In June 1876 he, Bettina and their two daughters left Prague for Jabkenice, the home of his eldest daughter Zofie where, in tranquil surroundings, Smetana was able to work undisturbed.[88] Before leaving Prague he had begun a cycle of six symphonic poems, called Ma vlast (My Fatherland),[89] and had completed the first two, Vysehrad and Vltava, which had both been performed in Prague during 1875.[90] In Jabkenice Smetana composed four more movements, the complete cycle being first performed on 5 November 1882 under the baton of Adolf Cech.[91] Other major works composed in these years were the E minor String Quartet, From My Life, a series of Czech dances for piano, several choral pieces and three more operas: The Kiss, The Secret and The Devils Wall, all of which received their first performances between 1876 and 1882.[91]The National Theatre in Prague, opened 1881, destroyed by fire, rebuilt in 1883The long-delayed premiere of Smetanas opera Libuse finally arrived when the National Theatre opened on 11 June 1881. He had not initially been given tickets, but at the last minute was asked into the theatre directors box. The audience received the work enthusiastically, and Smetana was called to the stage repeatedly.[92][93] Shortly after this event the new theatre was destroyed by fire, despite his infirmities, Smetana helped to raise funds for the rebuilding.[91][94] The restored theatre reopened on 18 November 1883, again with Libuse[91]These years saw Smetanas growing recognition as the principal exponent of Czech national music.[91] This status was celebrated by several events during Smetanas final years. On 4 January 1880, a special concert in Prague marked the 50th anniversary of his first public performance, Smetana attended, and played his Piano Trio in G minor from 1855. In May 1882 The Bartered Bride was given its 100th performance, an unprecedented event in the history of Czech opera. It was so popular that a repeat 100th performance was staged.[91] A gala concert and banquet was arranged to honour Smetanas 60th birthday in March 1884, but he was too ill to attend.[91]Illness and deathSmetanas gravestone at the Vysehrad cemetery, Prague. The date format is ccd/myy.In 1879, Smetana had written to a friend, the Czech poet Jan Neruda, revealing fears of the onset of madness.[95] By the winter of 1882–83 he was experiencing depression, insomnia, and hallucinations, together with giddiness, cramp and a temporary loss of speech.[95] In 1883 he began writing a new symphonic suite, Prague Carnival, but could get no further than an Introduction and a Polonaise.[96] He started a new opera, Viola, based on the character in Shakespeares Twelfth Night,[97] but wrote only fragments as his mental state gradually deteriorated.[96] In October 1883 his behaviour at a private reception in Prague disturbed his friends,[96] by the middle of February 1884 he had ceased to be coherent, and was periodically violent.[98] On 23 April his family, unable to nurse him any longer, removed him to the Katerinky Lunatic Asylum in Prague, where he died on 12 May 1884.[91][98]The Bedrich Smetana Museum on the banks of the Vltava, PragueThe hospital registered the cause of death as senile dementia.[98] However, Smetanas family believed that his physical and mental decline was due to syphilis.[98] An analysis of the autopsy report, published by the German neurologist Dr Ernst Levin in 1972, came to the same conclusion.[99] Tests carried out by Prof. Emanuel Vlcek in the late 20th century on samples of muscular tissue from Smetanas exhumed body provided further evidence of the disease. However, this research has been challenged by Czech physician Dr Jiri Ramba, who has argued that Vlceks tests do not provide a basis for a reliable conclusion, citing the age and state of the tissues and highlighting reported symptoms of Smetanas that were incompatible with syphilis.[100]Smetanas funeral took place on 15 May, at the Tyn Church in Pragues Old Town. The subsequent procession to the Vysehrad Cemetery was led by members of the Hlahol, bearing torches, and was followed by a large crowd.[98] The grave later became a place of pilgrimage for musical visitors to Prague.[101] On the funeral evening, a scheduled performance of The Bartered Bride at the National Theatre was allowed to proceed, the stage draped with black cloth as a mark of respect.[98]Smetana was survived by Bettina, their daughters Zdenka and Bozena, and by Zofie. None of them played any significant role in Smetanas musical life. Bettina lived until 1908, Zofie, who had married Josef Schwarz in 1874, predeceased her stepmother, dying in 1902. The younger daughters eventually married, living out their lives away from the public eye. A permanent memorial to Smetanas life and work is the Bedrich Smetana Museum in Prague, originally founded in 192

Summary

Wikipedia Source: Bedrich Smetana