“Dobrá! Já mu je dám!… Radostí nesmírnou” from Dalibor (1868)

Smetana’s Dalibor – which failed with the public during the composer’s lifetime but which has been successfully revived many times since – has been called “a Czech Fidelio.” It is true that there is a superficial resemblance: Milada dresses as a boy and takes a job as a gaoler’s assistant in an effort to secure the release of the imprisoned Dalibor. In this case, however, the brave heroine fails and both she and Dalibor die in the end. “Radostí nesmírnou,” a highly dramatic aria introduced by the recitative “Dobrá! Já mu je dám!” comes from the second act at the point where Milada, in her capacity as the gaoler’s assistant, is about to deliver a violin to Dalibor’s cell. Driven by an impatient orchestra reflecting her joy at the prospect of seeing him, the vocal line surges through a challengly wide range, touching uninhibitedly on both the upper and lower extremes. It might not be very Czech in idiom, as Smetana’s contemporaries observed, but it is certainly effective.