New productions

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.

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.

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.