The charm of Prague's annual music festival is that it conceals any individual performance deficiencies in an enveloping atmosphere of cultural thirst, goodwill, and genuine international spirit. Judging by a sampling of this year's events, planning and execution have been of a higher standard than in recent years, with plentiful helpings of leading Western artists (including conductors Sir Colin Davis and Erich Leinsdorf, the Sadler's Wells and Bejart ballet troupes, and a host of top-ranking singers) as well as Prague's special blend of Slavic-oriented repertoire.
Prague has always been a musical city, even long before Mozart arrived on January 11, 1987, amid great artistic and social acclaim, to conduct his own music (a visit that resulted in the first performance of his Prague Symphony and a commission to write Don Giovanni for the city's Italian theater). At that time, most of the native Bohemian musical talent was being lured away by the better financial and artistic prospects in Italian and German court theaters. It was not until a century later, when Bedrich Smetana led a campaign for Czech cultural consciousness culminating in the opening of the National Theater in 1881, that the first stirrings of a nationalist movement in Czech music became visible. Even then Czech culture had to accept second place in the life of a city that was still very much part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, with German as the official language.
However turbulent the events of the present century have been for the Czech people - with all the hopes of the first Czechoslovak republic dashed by Nazi expansionism, followed by the postwar takeover by the present communist state - Czech musical life has nevertheless gone from strength to strength. The foreign visitor today may detect an underlying conservatism in the approach to musical scholarship and operatic interpretation, and deduce that contemporary Czech music remains isolated from current European trends. But in compensation, there is the liveliness of the new music scene, thanks to the recognition and encouragement given to living composers. There is the outstanding vigor and thoroughbred quality of Czech music-making, exemplified in the warm timbre of the country's leading orchestras, pillars of the central European string tradition. Finally, there are the historic theaters and concert halls of Prague itself, more beautiful than any equivalent in the New World, and more naturally resonant than anything today's acoustic experts could devise.
The best examples are the recently renovated National Theater, a jewel of a building that was originally funded by national subscription and now hosts an almost exclusively Czech operatic repertoire; the Smetana Hall, at the center of a building that is an eye-catching celebration of art-deco design; the Dvorak Hall, where the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra gives its winter concerts; and St. Vitus Cathedral, a Gothic monument that acts as an occasional venue for large choral concerts and overlooks Prague from across the River Moldau. The only hall where the impact of music is lost on its listeners is the so-called Palace of Culture, a plush conference hall where the most popular symphony concerts take place.
These are the buildings, along with several others, that play host to orchestras, recitalists, and opera and ballet ensembles during the three weeks of May that are devoted to the Prague Spring festival. Prazske Jaro, as the festival is known in Czech, was founded in 1946. It always begins with a performance of Smetana's
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