On the concert platform, Welsh National Opera’s orchestral musicians brought lyricism and exactitude Britten, Mahler and Janáček, while mezzo Jana Kurucová gave a glowing, sensitive rendition of Dvořák’s Biblical Songs
A signet ring which the famous Czech pedagogue and philosopher Jan Amos Komenský (Comenius) gave his daughter is reportedly still in possession of his descendants. Throughout the centuries, the object has made its way through at least three continents and is a closely guarded family heirloom.
For many centuries, signet rings were an important object for identification and communication. Used to imprint the sender’s signature on a wax seal, they tended to be inherited by the male heir of a family.
Evidence that the famous Czech pedagogue Jan Amos Komenský had such a ring too exists in one of the documents located at the Memorial of Kralice Bible in East Bohemia’s Kralice nad Oslavou. The memorial is located near a fort which was occupied by the protestant community of the Unity of the Brethren and used as by them as a secret printing press. Komensky himself was a member of this religious denomination and his faith was the reason why he had to emigrate from the Kingdom of Bohem