Zdenék Fibich

Sarka Overture

This overture introducing Fibich's opera 'Sarka', was composed between 1896 and 1897 and is based on a famous Bohemian legend. Several Czech composers, such as Bedrich Smetana and Leos Janacek, have used this popular national story in opera's and symphonic poems. The relevant legend deals with Vlasta, the courageous Amazone Queen who has a quarrel with the Bohemian knights. After several battles she thinks of a cunning to conquer the knights. She leaves her ally, the beautiful Sarka, tied up to a tree in the middle of the forest. The knight Ctirad finds her, frees her and takes her back to his camp. In the evening he organizes a kind of victory celebration with his friends. At night, while the knights sleep it off, Sarka calls the Amazones. The latter have no difficulties to conquer the sleeping knights. Fibich does not keep strictly to the original legend and made quite some changes, especially at the end of the story.