Sarka

Abstract

Enthusiasts for Janáček’s operas will welcome this edition, expertly edited by Jiří Zahrádka, a young Czech scholar who lives and works in the composer’s beloved Brno. This early opera was badly in need of a new edition, given both the resurgence of interest in the composer’s operas in recent years and the previous lack of scholarly and editorial interest in the composer’s pre-Jenůfa works. In the light of Janáček research it seems likely that the composer was drawn to this subject because of its musico-dramatic possibilities, its nationalist subtext, and its fascinating female characters. Šárka is the Amazonian maiden who, according to a fourteenth-century source, allows herself to be tied to a tree to entice Ctirad, a brave warrior who is her opponent. After he frees her, she offers him and his men intoxicating drinks and asks him to blow her hunting horn. He obliges and unwittingly alerts the hidden warrior maidens, who rush out and slaughter the men and take Ctirad captive. Once he is transported to their fortress Devin, the defeated Ctirad is taken to the river Vltava and broken on the wheel. When Přemysl, the king, learns of the women’s activities, his armies storm Devin, kill the maidens, and burn the fortress to the ground. Various sources detail Šárka’s end; in one version she is buried alive, in another she wills herself to turn to stone, and in Julius Zeyer’s libretto—the basis for Janáček’s setting—heartbroken and defeated, she stabs herself to death.