Antonín Dvořák’s two most successful operas, The Devil and Kate, and Rusalka, are based on fairy-tale motifs. Blending folk and humorous with lyrical and fantasy elements is one of the typical (and still very popular) traits of Czech drama. Dvořák created a masterly patchwork of contrasting scenes – folksy, breezy, fiendishly fervent and courtly noble.

The Devil and Kate

National Theatre Prague

Smetana and the librettist Karel Sabina masterfully mocked all those who expected the “national opera” to be an idyllic picture of the Czech countryside, with its inhabitants being virtuous and governed by high morals. The Bartered Bride is thus far more humorous than “national”. Nonetheless, its humour is precisely of the type Czechs so love, and hence Smetana’s opera, abounding in irony, scathing, occasionally even cynical, wit, as well as tenderness and simple joie de vivre, has ultimately become “national” in the best sense of the word ...

The Bartered Bride

National Theatre

For over two centuries, Gioachino Rossini has been one of the most celebrated opera composers, and it might even have been the case if he had written nothing but Il barbiere di Siviglia. Both its genesis and premiere were connected with all kinds of twists and turns, which accompany many a play and opera. The piece had to be completed hastily, rehearsed and staged even more hastily; it was a setting of a literary work that had been used several times; the premiere was poorly received and affected by scandal, etc. In hindsight and knowing the fates of other creations, such circumstances would seem to be the best prerequisite for future success. Four years after the opera’s world premiere, in 1816 at the Teatro Argentino in Rome, Il barbiere di Siviglia was first presented, in German translation, at the Estates Theatre in Prague, which in 1825 staged the piece in Czech, owing mainly to the composer and conductor František Škroup (known primarily for creating the melody of the Czech national anthem), who would later on also give Czech premieres of operas by Wagner and others. The Provisional Theatre included Il barbiere di Siviglia in its repertoire during its very first season. Later on the opera was also undertaken by the National Theatre, which to date has adapted it in more than ten productions.

Il barbiere di Siviglia

The powerful story of The Dogheads, one of Alois Jirásek’s most celebrated works, seems destined for the operatic stage. In 1897, the experienced composer and conductor Karel Kovařovic took on the challenge and created an opera that triumphed in the competition for a new Czech opera, surpassing Fibich and Foerster. Soon after, The Dogheads spread to opera houses across the Czech lands and won the hearts of a wide audience.

The Dogheads

Theater of JK Tyl New Stage

That which Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir or Odilon Redon meant for painting, Claude Debussy meant for music. His compositions, teeming with imagination, manifold colours and fleeting atmospheres, straddle two epochs – Romanticism and Modernism – actually co-forming the borderline itself. At the turn of the 20th century, the arts, music included, underwent ground-breaking changes, with opera being no exception. Pioneers of modern music – such as Debussy and Igor Stravinsky – assumed a rather standoffish attitude to the genre, hesitant as to how to approach the “obsolete form”. Debussy attempted to write several operas, yet only succeeded in a single case. The one and only opera he completed is the today iconic adaptation of the Belgian Symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Pélleas et Mélisande. Debussy’s setting is devoid of conventional grand operatic gesture and effect, giving preference instead to an intimate music drama, with everything decisive happening “between the lines” – in allusions, silence and delicate, symbolic details.

Pelléas et Mélisande

The singer Floria Tosca, who is even invited to the royal court, and the painter Mario Cavaradossi are respected and adored artists, yet their standing does not safeguard them against the malicious police chief Baron Scarpia. Cavaradossi dies not only because he, a Voltairean, tries to save the life of Cesare Angelotti, the former Consul of the Roman Republic, but also for being Tosca’s lover, Scarpia’s rival. Giacomo Puccini had mulled over Victorien Sardou’s La Tosca ever since 1889, when he saw in Milan a performance of the drama, starring the celebrated actress Sarah Bernhardt.

Tosca

State Opera

The Secret is Bedřich Smetana’s seventh, and penultimate, opera. It is also the second fruit of the composer’s collaboration with the librettist Eliška Krásnohorská. Completed in May1878, the piece received its premiere the on 18 September at the New Czech Theatre in Prague. The National Theatre first staged the opera on 12 May 1885, on the first anniversary of Smetana’s death. Yet it only attained wide popularity after the post of the opera company’s director had been assumed by the conductor Karel Kovařovic, who was fully aware of the qualities of the mature Smetana work. Krásnohorská furnished Smetana with an exquisite libretto, whose themes may bring to mind William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet or the Czech author Ladislav Stroupežnický’s play Our Uppish and Defiant Fellows, dating from a later time.

Jiří Sulženko

Events

Upcoming events

Aug 27, 2026 - Jun 27, 2027

The Bartered Bride · Národní divadlo

Sep 3, 2026 - Mar 21, 2027

The Devil and Kate · Národní divadlo

Sep 13 - Dec 31, 2026

Il barbiere di Siviglia · Národní divadlo

24 - 25 Sep, 2026

The Dogheads · J.K. Tyl Theatre

Oct 15 - Nov 19, 2026

Pelléas et Mélisande · Národní divadlo

Past events

Sep 3, 2026 - Mar 21, 2027

The Devil and Kate · Národní divadlo

Aug 27, 2026 - Jun 27, 2027

The Bartered Bride · Národní divadlo

Future and recently performed repertoire

Kecal in The Bartered Bride by Smetana

Národní divadlo

Doctor in Pelléas et Mélisande by Debussy

Národní divadlo

Sagrestano in Tosca by Puccini

Národní divadlo

Bartolo in Il barbiere di Siviglia by Rossini

Národní divadlo

Ghost of Friar Barnabáš in The Secret by Smetana

Národní divadlo

Matěj Přibek in The Dogheads by Kovařovic

J.K. Tyl Theatre

Lucifer in The Devil and Kate by Dvořák

Národní divadlo

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