New productions

In association with the Mime Department of the Faculty of Music, Academy of Music and Drama in Prague. Featuring members of the SACRA CIRCUS Prague acrobatics team.

The protagonists of Jules Massenet’s operas and oratorios are mostly female, as is indeed implied already by the names of his works: Thaïs, Hérodias, La Navarroise, Sappho, Ariane, Thérèse, Grisélidis, Cendrillon, Cléopâtre, Manon, Marie-Magdeleine. Setting an exception to the rule, the hero of Massenet’s last opera is a man, after all. Namely, Don Quixote, in the eponymous opera subtitled “comédie héroïque.” Massenet’s librettist, Henri Cain, drew his material from a French stage adaptation of the Cervantes novel, from the pen of Massenet’s contemporary, Jacques Le Lorrain, entitled Le Chevalier de la longue figure. The role of Don Quixote was made to measure for the legendary Russian bass, Fyodor Shalyapin. The latter triumphed in the opera’s premiere, in Monte Carlo, on February 19, 1910, and it was doubtless thanks to him that the work became widely staged and known. He also guest-appeared at the National Theatre in Prague, on June 1, 1934. The premises of today’s Prague State Opera saw one previous staging of Don Quichotte, a production that ran from 1965–1967 on the stage of the then Smetana Theatre under the baton of Albert Rosen and directed by Luděk Mandaus.

“Dangerously fascinating, frighteningly and sweetly infinite,” was how Friedrich Nietzsche characterized the opera, Tristan und Isolde, written by Richard Wagner to his own libretto between 1857 and 1859. He drew inspiration from the epic, Tristan und Isolt, by Gottfried von Strassburg (d. around 1210), who in his turn based it drew on an ancient Celtic legend. The first company to show interest in staging the work was the Court Opera in Vienna. At the end of a string of 70 harrowing rehearsals between 1862 and 1864, though, the work was declared unperformable. Only after the intercession of Wagner’s admirer, Ludwig II of Bavaria, did the premiere take place, at Munich, on June 10, 1865, under the baton of Hans von Bülow. The Prague State Opera building saw four previous productions of Tristan und Isolde, premiered on September 1, 1896, March 31, 1907, March 9, 1912 (by Alexander Zemlinsky), and June 21, 1934. All of these stagings were mounted by the then New German Theatre. This means the anticipated new production will return Tristan und Isolde under this roof after an absence of 76 years!

The life of the founder of German Romantic opera, Carl Maria von Weber, was to a considerable extent linked with the Bohemian lands. From 1813 – 1816 he was the principal conductor of the Estates Theatre in Prague, fell in love there with singer/actress Caroline Brandt and married her in the Prague Church of St Henry in 1817; and paid several curative visits to the spa resort of Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad). It was also in Bohemia that he set the plot of his most famous opera, Der Freischütz. His last opera, Die drei Pintos, to the libretto of Theodor Hell, remained unfinished. At the behest of the composer’s grandson, Carl, the task of completing the work was in 1887 undertaken by Gustav Mahler. He complemented the score by music from Weber’s other works, and added passages of his own making, inspired by Weber’s themes. Mahler conducted the opera’s world premiere in Leipzig, on January 20, 1888, and eight months later, on August 18 of the same year, presented it at the New German Theatre (today’s Prague State Opera). The plot is based on the popular ploy of fake identity, which is in this particular case three-fold: Don Pinto, a wealthy, rude landowner, finds himself cheated by two young men, Don Gaston and Gomez, pretending, each in his own turn, to be him. They foil Pinto’s pretensions to fair Donna Clarissa who in her turn loves Gomez. Needless to say, the opera then moves on towards a happy ending.

Strauss’ most popular opera, Der Rosenkavalier, has continued to fascinate audiences ever since its premiere at Dresden, on January 26, 1911. Indeed, the occasion sparked off such an uproar that railway companies had to bring in additional trains to enable the throngs of fans from all around Europe to come to Dresden. After his previous operas, Salome and Elektra, both tragedies filled with blood, Strauss decided to write a comedy which would come across as a modern-day version of Le nozze di Figaro: he himself dubbed Der Rosenkavalier a “Mozartian” opera. He commissioned the text from his best librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal; the two have been regarded as opera’s most distinguished creative tandem after Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte. The opera offers a comic story involving a wealth of identity switches, with four principal characters: the Marschallin, her young lover Octavian, Baron Ochs and his potential fiancée Sophie. The score’s many waltz melodies set a contrast to the Theresian Vienna where the action is set; thus the “Rococo atmosphere” is by design anachronic. As the Marschallin looks back at her bygone youth, the story becomes permeated with a poignant note of deep melancholy, signalling the end of an era not only in this opera. Richard Strauss was a regular source of material for staging at the New German Theatre (today’s Prague State Opera), where Der Rosenkavalier was mounted in six different productions (for the first time on June 7, 1914), including three conducted by Alexander Zemlinsky. Strauss himself conducted the opera’s performance here on June 18, 1922. Later on in this theatre’s history, during its era as the Smetana Theatre, Der Rosenkavalier received one production, conducted by Rudolf Vašata and staged by Karel Jernek; between its premiere on January 31, 1964, and March 19, 1968, it was given 53 repeat showings.

One of the most successful European choreographers of our time, Yuri Vámos, has won acclaim for his highly individual adaptations of such ballet classics as The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet, or Spartacus. In his version of The Sleeping Beauty, he transformed, in close collaboration with the stage artist Michael Scott, the traditional fairy-tale subject into a spectacular ballet drama dealing with the happy life and tragic end of the Russian imperial family. In the ballet’s scenes set at the court, he evokes the figure of Anna Anderson, who spent her whole life in the belief of being the Tsar’s daughter. In Anna Anderson-Anastasia’s recollections, aristocratic scenes in the imperial palace metamorphose into images of an innocent childhood spent amid splendour, as well as into a reminiscence of the classical Russian ballet with all its virtuoso attributes. The production promises a very special experience to look forward to by all lovers of strong story-telling, as well as by aficionados of top-class mastery of the art of ballet.

The illustrious two-act ballet of the Romantic era, inspired by the German poet Heinrich Heine, draws on the contrast between the human and the supernatural worlds. The story of a sweet country girl who dies, her heart broken by unfulfilled love, and whose soul turns to a fairy, is accompanied by A. C. Adam’s charming music abounding in easy-to-remember tunes. The work’s world premiere, at the Paris Opera in 1841, won a huge acclaim. Giselle has since become one of only few Romantic works to survive its time and now ranks alongside music’s timeless treasures. The Prague State Opera ballet ensemble will present the traditional version of Giselle known to audiences around the globe, which has served as a vehicle of excellence to the world’s foremost prima ballerinas and danceurs nobles.

The Gala Concert marking 50 years from the death of Bohuslav Martinů (b. in Polička, December 8, 1890; d. in Liestal, Augusst 28, 1959) presents a cross-section of Martinů’s output over a period of 43 years (from 1915 – 1958), at the same time aspiring to point out the commitment of today’s Prague State Opera to the glorious history of its premises.

Kudykam, a 1,600 verse-long song text with music by Petr Hapka staged at the Prague State Opera is a theatrical play in verse, part sung, part spoken: a “one-poem play,“ one might label it with a touch of an overstatement.

The story deals with the inner journey of the hero (Martin), who is seen at the beginning in his small room at the “Guesthouse World.” Should he be content with what he has and can take for granted, or had he rather step out into uncertainty and into the maelstrom of opportunities and perils that he rightly assumes lurks behind the door of his lodgings? Ought he to follow in the footsteps of his uncle who is said to have set out on such an expedition a long time ago, and who is believed to have reached up from the fifth underground level to immeasurable heights, perhaps even as high as  the ground floor? And if he chooses likewise, will he know whitherward (kudy kam) to go? As soon as he poses himself these questions, Martin finds himself face in face with the embodiment of his wish, in the form of Kudykam/Whitherward, who instantly offers himself as Martin’s guide. He promises to submit to Martin suggestions of progress at each stage of his journey, yet will leave up to him the choice of specific individual steps to take. Martin agrees and so becomes the disciple of a truly bizarre Master. He will encounter many hurdles on his way, but the hardest battle he is to fight will be with himself.

The musical part of the spectacle is the work of composer Petr Hapka, with orchestration by Ondřej Brzobohatý. In all, the play contains nineteen songs. While some of them   including the opener, V Penziónu Svět / At the Guesthouse World   are the product of earlier collaboration of Michal Horáček and Petr Hapka, most are new. The most prominent new numbers are Hladiny / Surfaces; Tante cose da veder (both Kudykam); and Havrani na sněhu / Rooks on Snow (Martin).

An acclaimed baritone and a brilliant manager with a bountiful record of theatrical experience, Vienna-born Angelo Neumann shaped the history of Prague’s New German Theatre during no fewer than 22 years, from the theatre’s opening on January 5, 1888, with Wagner’s Meistersinger von Nürnberg, until his death in 1910. He came to the New German Theatre after three years as director of the Royal Land German Theatre (then the official name of the Nostitz Theatre in Prague’s Ovocný trh, or Fruit Market). The repertoire Neumann built up for the new theatre was centered around the compositional legacies of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, the latter of whom made several visits here to conduct his operas, Guntram, Salome, and Der Rosenkavalier. Along with that, Neumann showed due respect for Italian Romantic opera, focusing particularly on the output of Veristic composers, most notably Puccini and Mascagni. Mascagni made several visits to the New German Theatre, to conduct his phenomenally successful one-acter, Cavalleria rusticana. Neumann was likewise a tireless seeker of new titles, bringing onto the company’s stage a number of world, Czech and Prague first productions. Under his management the New German Theatre boasted a modern approach to dramaturgy, flawless execution of its productions, and exquisite standard of interpretation, qualities which elevated it to a high European status. His death, on December 20, 1910, was a major loss for Prague’s theatre world.