Martinû's one-act opera, The Voice of the Forest, written in 1935 on a commission from Prague Radio, it has ranked alongside the most frequently performed radio operas of all time. Bohuslav Martinů had originally conceived it with the possibility of its subsequent stage presentation in mind; it is an irony, then, that his other radio opera, Comedy on the Bridge, which had been intended exclusively for that medium, actually received a number of productions at major international opera venues in the 1950s and '60s, whereas The Voice of the Forest has so far failed to assert itself on stage. Perhaps this should be ascribed to its greater complexity and stylistic variety, which in their turn pose considerably higher demands on production.
Martinů formulated his opinions on the assets of radio opera in his notes on Comedy on the Bridge, as follows: "Elimination of the actual stage, leaving it up to the listener to visualize the play in his imagination, represents a gratifying task for the radio which will thus make full use of both the intensity of the drama produced, and the concentration combined with a certain kind of involvement on the part of the listener." He knew very well what he was talking about there: while still a student, he had been a regular visitor of the Prague National Theatre' s "blind man 's perch," an upper row of places whence he was unable to see the stage and could only imagine what was going on there.
Seeking for an author of the libretto, Martinů approached Vítézslav Nezval, the most prominent Czech Surrealist poet and translator of Apollinaire. Nezval proved to be an ideal partner who developed to the full the composer' s basic idea. In a letter of May 1935, Martinů expressed his satisfaction with the result, writing: "I believe it's a lovely play," and commissioning from Nezval the libretto for his next opera, Theatre Behind the Gate, H 251: "Please do the same as in The Voice of the Forest and stick strictly to the poetic content, and not so much to the plot."
By the time of writing this one-acter Martinů had already been engaged for several years in work on his concept of "folk theatre," experimenting with Czech folklore; a fine document of this endeavour is provided by his folk singing ballet, Spalíček (The Chap Book), H 214 I, of 1932. Like Nezval's libretto, the music of The Voice of the Forest, too, oscillates between a penny dreadful, a Czech folk fairy-tale, a dream and a lyric tableau. Its dramatic makeup is strictly anti-realistic; by involving the Narrator — whose task starts with the opera's prologue: "Come enter the forest more frightful than the skeleton" — Martinů achieved a sens of distance. As a result, the world of the stage play is de-psychologized and unequivocally defined as unrealistic, belonging in the domain of theatre. The Voice of the Forest was premièred on the waves of Prague Radio, on 6 October, 1935.
Aleš Březina, Martinů: Les Larmes du couteau, The Voice of the Forest, © 1999 Supraphon Music a.s