Jiří Bělohlávek toured the UK with his current orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic in April. But he returned to his former band, the BBC Symphony, to continue the series of concert performances of Czech operas that he began when he was its chief conductor between 2006 and 2012. That series has already included one work by Smetana, The Bartered Bride, but this time it was a much less familiar work, Dalibor, which was first performed two years after The Bartered Bride, in 1868, but which, much to its composer’s dismay, was never as successful as its frothy, folksy predecessor.
The story, set in 15th-century Prague, in which the title character is a knight incarcerated for avenging the murder of his best friend, is very close to that of Beethoven’s Fidelio. Milada, who initially accuses Dalibor but soon realises she loves him, attempts to free him by disguising herself as a minstrel boy and taking him a violin with which he can communicate with the outside world. But this is one rescue-opera that doesn’t end happily: the plan fails and the lovers are both killed.
It’s a drama that moves in fits and starts, slow to catch fire in the first act but much more purposeful from then on, though the ending seems rather abrupt. Musically there are echoes of Wagner, of Lohengrin particularly, and some longueurs are juxtaposed with music in which Smetana’s melodic invention is given full rein, with a rapturous second-act love duet as its high-point. Bělohlávek’s conducting was warm and wonderfully spacious in those purple passages.
This concert staging was directed by Kenneth Richardson, but felt rather limited in its scope by the singers’ use of scores – though the cast, all Czech, was a very fine one. Richard Samek was a suitably heroic tenor Dalibor and Dana Burešová an impassioned, striking Milada, while Alžběta Poláčková made a real impact in the role of Jitka, the orphan that Dalibor has befriended.
• Broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 14 May.
