Marie loves Hans and Hans loves Marie. But Hans is a stranger in the city, and Marie is promised to Wenzel, the son of the landowner Micha, in order to settle an old debt. The cunning marriage broker Kecal even offers Hans money if he will renounce Marie.
Surprisingly, Hans accepts – or is it merely a ruse? Bedřich Smetana’s opera premiered in Prague in 1866. In a revised version featuring a polka and a furiant, this work, which explores the soul of the Czech people, enjoyed huge success around the world. In her colourful staging in the style of the 1980s, director Mariame Clément examines the meaning of homeland and what it is to be foreign. With a sense of rhythm and poetry, an understanding of life’s vagaries and wielding a sharp scalpel, she gradually uncovers the different layers of this cheerful (love) story to reveal a bitter core.
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