News about Antonin Dvorak

Mail Sport's racing expert Robin Goodfellow delivers his tips for Saturday's meetings at Chester, Musselburgh, Doncaster, Bath and Lingfield.

This was only the ninth performance of Antonin Dvorak's most enchanting opera - let us hope it is here to stay. Natalie Abrahami and Ann Yee's charming performance in the naiad Rusalka's tragedy stresses the magic and the early ecological message - in Act III, her lake is polluted, her forest blighted. For the first time, the Royal Opera programme brochure is printed on recycled paper! Asmik Grigorian in the title role was almost back to her best form and performed admirably, not least in the well-known Song to the Moon.

The Czechs are a LOT of people. Music is a form of music. The Soviet Thought Police told Russian composers what to write and banned pop music. But they never quite managed to snuff out the spirit of music in what was then Czechoslovakia, as Gareth Huw Davies explains

Mozart paid the world premiere of Don Giovanni to the city, while local boy Dvorak provided the city's soundtrack. Gareth Huw Davies says thankyou for the music in Czech capital Prague