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

National Theatre Prague

Cupid’s arrows fly around as they please, binding the seemingly incompatible and dividing the seemingly inseparable. Mozart’s philandering Count Almaviva, his neglected wife Rosina, the Countess’s pretty maid Susanna and the crafty, albeit occasionally naïve, valet Figaro know all too well … The new National Theatre production of Le nozze di Figaro has been created by two distinguished female artists: the English conductor Julia Jones and the Czech stage director Barbora Horáková Joly.

Le nozze di Figaro

The Estates 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

And if we were to name the places at which Mozart in person premiered an opera of his and which still function as theatres, the one and only candidate in the world would be the Estates Theatre in Prague. The National Theatre Opera has proudly cherished this unique tradition for decades.

Don Giovanni

Song Recitals

Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème ranks among the most frequently staged operas worldwide. The composer was inspired by the Paris-based painter and writer Henry Murger’s popular book Scènes de la vie de bohème, published in 1851, immediately sensing its enormous dramatic potential. He duly asked the librettists and playwrights Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, with whom he had successfully collaborated previously, to pen a text for a new opera. Their fruitful partnership is among the most cherished in the history of opera, comparable to that of W. A. Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, or Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal.

La bohème

State Opera

After 15 years, a Baroque opera is returning to the National Theatre repertoire, and after a full quarter-century the National Theatre staged a work by Jean-Philippe Rameau, the guru of 18th-century French opera: the globally renowned comédie lyrique Platée, which, however, has never before been performed in the entire history of the National Theatre and the State Opera, and its predecessor, the Neues deutsches Theater.

Pavol Kubáň

Events

Upcoming events

Aug 28 - Nov 27, 2026

Don Giovanni · Národní divadlo

Sep 13 - Dec 31, 2026

Il barbiere di Siviglia · Národní divadlo

Sep 25, 2026 - May 8, 2027

Le nozze di Figaro · Národní divadlo

Oct 15 - Nov 19, 2026

Pelléas et Mélisande · Národní divadlo

Oct 25 - Nov 22, 2026

Song Recitals · Národní divadlo

Past events

Oct 15 - Nov 19, 2026

Pelléas et Mélisande · Národní divadlo

Sep 25, 2026 - May 8, 2027

Le nozze di Figaro · Národní divadlo

Future and recently performed repertoire

Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande by Debussy

Národní divadlo

Marcello in La bohème by Puccini

Národní divadlo

Don Giovanni in Don Giovanni by Mozart

Národní divadlo

Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia by Rossini

Národní divadlo

Jupiter in Platée by Rameau

Národní divadlo

Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro by Mozart

Národní divadlo

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