Search - Premysl Koci, Bedrich Smetana, Zdenek Chalabala :: Smetana: Hubicka (The Kiss)

The Kiss

C. Lunde | 06/14/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Hubicka" ("The Kiss") aims small, as its title suggests, and it has a very deft, light touch that most comic operas--and comedies in general--lack. The story is one Smetana really liked (he'd reuse it in various forms in three other operas), because it allowed him to explore his favorite theme, which is that we can only find true happiness late in life, after much suffering and self-discovery. The two main characters are Lukás and Vendulka, and they were in love when they were young--but Lukás came from a poor family, and his parents didn't really approve of Vendulka (and Vendulka's father never approved of Lukás). So Lukás is forced to marry a rich(er) stranger, and Vendulka and Lukás avoid one another for an extended period of time.



Then Lukás' wife dies, and after going through the proper mourning procedures, he comes with his brother-in-law to ask to marry Vendulka. Vendulka's father (reluctantly) agrees to let her marry him, and Lukás leans in to kiss her--



Then things go nuts. Vendulka won't let him touch her until the wedding, out of respect for his dead wife and the little baby he had with her (he brought the baby with him). So they chase one another around for awhile, until it's not just about the refused kiss anymore--it's about who should submit to who, and who should respect whose rights. It ends with Lukás screaming at her: "Crazy woman, are you throwing me out?" And--she does. It turns out that Vendulka's father didn't want to sign off on the marriage because he knew something like this would happen: both Lukás and Vendulka are extremely stubborn people, and neither wants to give in to the other. Vendulka just shakes her head and remembers when she and Lukás were younger, and hopes the whole mess will blow over. Then she picks up the little baby (who got left behind) and sings him a lullaby, and falls asleep.



Lukás goes out and gets very, very drunk and does some very, very stupid things--he sings a drinking song that wakes Vendulka up, and she sees him with other women. (Yes. Plural.) So she runs off into the woods. When Lukás sobers up, he is of course very sorry, but he doesn't know how to fix things, so he also runs into the woods and attempts to kill himself. Luckily, his brother-in-law finds him and talks him off the ledge, as it were, and they go back to see Vendulka's father. (Thank God for baritone brothers-in-law in comic operas.) The father's pissed off at them because they left the baby and it cried all night and he had to take care of it. Eventually, though, Lukás convinces him that he is, indeed, sorry, and the father agrees that the wedding can take place as long as Vendulka agrees to forgive him.



Vendulka's been in the forest all night with her great-aunt who's involved with smugglers (don't ask; it's just a subplot). Her aunt tries to scare her, telling her that *she* should give in to Lukás because she's the one at fault--but Vendulka's having none of that. (This is not a sexist opera, making it incredibly rare in the genre.) But a soldier comes through the trees and nearly catches her and the smugglers, which understandably rattles her a bit. She monologues: "I hate Lukás, how could I ever have loved him," etc., but she's really just mad at him--she thinks he must not love her, because of what he did. Then Barce (the maid), the chorus, her great-aunt and her father all tag-team to convince Vendulka that he *does* love her--that he ran away and wanted to kill himself--and she agrees to forgive Lukás. Then *she* tries to kiss *him* as a way of convincing him that she's forgiven him--and this time, *he* pushes her away.



The chorus just shakes its head. Tsk. The poor father tears his hair. "Will I ever have peace in my house?!"



Lukás says that Vendulka was right, he was wrong, and he wants to wait for the wedding. He sounds kind of broken here, and that's not what Vendulka wants--though neither *wants* to submit to the other, neither one wants to be submitted *to*, either. Vendulka says that *she's* the one who was wrong, and they finally agree to disagree and kiss each other already. :) What's fun about it is that you just *know* another argument just like this one is going to happen next week and every week for the rest of their married lives--but they'll be happy anyway. So, yeah--that's "Hubicka."



As to the performance: this is an ensemble opera, and everyone is dead-on convincing, though Petrová's Barce is a little grating on the ears. There are no other weak links. Conducting is typical Chalabala--that is to say, sensitive, accurate, idiomatic (of course) and "straight": he pulls out the music as written, and brings out its own profound sweetness. I should clarify: this opera is very sweet, but it is not at all saccharine or false. This is the first opera Smetana wrote after going completely deaf, and some of that loss has crept into the opera, to its good, I think."