Zelinka, Jan Evangelista

(b Prague, 13 Feb 1893; d Prague, 30 June 1969). Czech composer. He studied music with his father, a composer, and also took advice from Ostrčil. While working as a clerk he was active as a pianist and writer. He was a prolific composer in all genres: besides 14 operas he wrote melodramas and music for pantomimes, plays, films and radio programmes. An eclectic late Romantic with inclinations to sentimentality, he made use of traditional folk elements in the 1950s. Dceruška hostinského (‘The Innkeeper’s Daughter’), based on an old Prague legend in a Romantic occult setting, uses vocal recitation and unvarying, heavy instrumentation. The lyrical musical comedy Devátá louka (‘The Ninth Meadow’) is about the first erotic experience of a naive girl; the folk opera Paličatý švec (‘The Pigheaded Shoemaker’) concerns a good-humoured craftsman who prefers his handicraft to the machine production of shoes. Meluzína (‘The Wailing Wind’) is based on a fairy-tale drawn from folk tradition.