Visions of the Village: Ruralness, Identity, and Czech Opera

Visions of the Village offers a nuanced account of the cultural history, political salience, and social resonances of Czech village operas, especially those by composers Bed%rich Smetana, Antonín Dvo%rák, and Leos Janáček. By examining music-critical writings, institutional and government records, letters, and other archival sources, Christopher Campo-Bowen examines how musical representations of the idealized village acquired and provided meaning for Czech audiences, serving as the basis for understandings of a wide range of sociocultural and political issues, including gender, class, nationalism, imperialism, ethnicity, and race.

This book explores how operas like Smetana's The Bartered Bride, Dvo%rák's The Devil and Kate, and Janáček's Jenůfa served as focal points for the articulation of an essentialist sense of Czech identity. In addition to composers and their operas, Campo-Bowen investigates the output of critics, administrators, and other urban intellectuals like Otakar Hostinský, Frantisek Adolf %Subert, and Zdeněk Nejedlý to understand the impact of village operas on public discourse. Through this in-depth analysis, this book uncovers how music functions at the nexus of the desire for politically resonant ethnoracial identities and the representation of ruralness, from the nineteenth century to the present.