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The calm and peaceful lives of two young widows - cousins Karolina and Anežka, who live together on a countryside estate - is suddenly stirred up by an unexpected visitor. It becomes obvious that the mysterious poacher, who suddenly appears in the estate’s forest, is not out hunting for a doe but rather pining for one of them. At the beginning of the 1870s, Smetana faced a rising number of challenges to his position of artistic director of Prague’s opera ensemble. From this tense and pressured period for the composer sprang a work of immense creative grace. He seems to delight in evoking a world of people of refined manners, fine culture and the gentle atmosphere of a rural estate. Perhaps it was a relief from life's difficulties and an escape from everyday dullness - a kind of summer fairy tale with a happy end.