When a spirited peasant girl is promised to a stranger, she uses every last ounce of cunning and charm to thwart her parents’ plans and get the man she actually loves. From the vibrant overture to the riotous polka, Smetana places dance at the heart of his sparkling work. This festive celebration of Czech culture and identity is re-imagined into the heart of the English countryside with this new production at Garsington Opera.

This is one of the most enjoyable opera produced. The playful production by Paul Curran (Teatro Lirico di Cagliari [Sardinia]) has a wealth of clever touches, and the sets and costumes are lovely, whimsical, imaginative, and wonderfully captured. T The libretto for "Cherubin" (1905), an homage to Beaumarchais and da Ponte, takes up the story of the character Cherubino from Mozart's "Le nozze di Figaro" and shows him suffering his first great disappointment in love, his rejection by the courtesan/dancer Ensoleillad. All ends happily, however, as Cherubin finds his real destiny in Nina, a girl his own age. The story is tightly constructed, the text full of wit and humor in lighter moments and rapturous poetry in the love scenes, and the DVD's subtitles are expertly handled.