Fleeing Communist Czechoslavakia
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Rafael Kubelík: a Life in Pictures

6. Fleeing Communist Czechoslavakia
After the Communist coup of February 1948, Kubelík left Czechoslavakia, vowing not to return until the country was liberated. He defected during a trip to Britain, where he was conducting Mozart's Don Giovanni with the Glyndebourne company at the Edinburgh Festival. For more than four decades, he declined several invitations to return to Czechoslavakia. Photo: STR/AFP/Getty