About the work
Antonín Dvořák composed this five-act opera between August and December 1875 to a libretto by Václav Beneš Šumavský and František Zákrejs, adapting a Polish source by the Warsaw scholar Julian Surzycki. Adolf Čech conducted the premiere on 17 April 1876 at Prague's Provisional Theatre.
Plot
The Polish princess Wanda inherits her father's throne and chooses the knight Slavoj as her husband instead of the German prince Roderich. When Roderich invades with an army, Wanda vows her life to the gods in exchange for victory; after the invaders are defeated, she keeps her vow and drowns herself in the Vistula.
Cultural significance
Shaped by the Pan-Slavic sentiment of the 1870s, the premiere was well received, but the opera's weak libretto kept it off the stage for the rest of Dvořák's life. Conductor Gerd Albrecht brought the work back with a recording and performances from 1999 onward.