Naive Ema is dying to experience the exciting life and eternal love she only knowns from romance novels. But her dreams and rosy visions clash with the boring reality of her marriage to a prudent and caring country doctor. Ordinariness and banality suffocate her, random love encounters bring temporary excitement but cannot satisfy her fantasies. She is constantly haunted by the desire for all that’s new, better, and greater, but the glittering ideal world that lures her eventually brings her down in the crash with the ruthless reality. Permanent dissatisfaction and desire for a better life that seems at hand and purchasable on credit is a trap into which we are still falling after more than one hundred and fifty years.

Madame Bovary

The Estates Theatre

In 75 letters, the two main protagonists, the cruel Marquise de Merteuil and the cynical Vicomte de Valmont – tough players, rivals and partners – unfurl a dangerous game with the feelings of their victims, abounding in malicious emotional manipulation and brazen seduction within the web of a variable love polygon. The roles in the “dangerous game of the dangerous liaisons” are played by humiliation resulting from being spurned and desire for revenge, as well as longing for achieving satisfaction from having control over the fate of another person and steering the others’ feelings and passions. Yet not even masters of calculated strategy can be safe against the natural power of love that is capable of both saving and destroying everything …

Dangerous Liaisons

Mary W. Shelley wrote her first and most famous novel in 1818. Though it has turned a literary classic, it is mostly known from pop culture references, film adaptations, and variations emphasizing the image of a horrific monster stitched together from various body parts by the insane professor Frankenstein. The (in)human creature secretly brought to life in the ambitious scientist’s laboratory has no name in Mary Shelley’s iconic horror novel. The creator dismisses his creation upon its ‘birth’ as a failed experiment, throwing it on a solitary desperate journey where the only thing it longs for is a compassion.

Frankenstein

The Tulip Fever is an adaptation of the classic comedy Spanish Brabander (Spaanschen Brabander, 1618) written by Shakespeare’s contemporary Gerbrand Breder (1585-1618), a master playwright of the Dutch Golden Age. The play describes the machinations with tulip bulbs – which in 1637 led to what is considered the first speculative bubble – set against the backdrop of the picaresque poetics of swindlers at the time. The text is skillfully interspersed with typical attributes of real capitalism: quick money, monetization of human relationships, profitable investments, madness of crowds, political scheming, and the notorious uppishness of public figures. In fact, Jerolimo orchestrates this major investment campaign, targeted on Amsterdam bourgeoisie, secretly amidst a never-ending party at Madame Beatrice’s brothel. Will the (mostly sober) people of Amsterdam see through his cynicism before it is too late? Will they come to their senses before realising that they served him not only as a joke, but also as a source of profit? And that it destroys people’s souls? Mhm?! Hardly.

Scamsterdam

The young god Dionysus arrives in Thebes so as to initiate the city inhabitants into his cult. His passionate female followers, the Bacchae, revel in a strange ritual, during which they indulge in orgies and fall into a madness-like state. Their behaviour infuriates King Pentheus of Thebes, who confronts the stranger. Unfortunately, he has no inkling who his rival is, ignoring the advice of those around him to show humility. The arrival of a new god may not necessarily mean salvation, yet it certainly does herald the accession of a new order. Who is right? Is it Pentheus, who refuses to understand the impending change and instead strives to firmly grasp the world, or is it Dionysus the “rubble rouser”? Perhaps equilibrium can never hold sway without chaos …

The Bacchae

The war of the “Seven against Thebes”, fought between Oedipus’ sons Polynices and Eteocles, ended with the brothers’ mutual killing. Creon the king orders funeral rites of honour for Eteocles, as the defender of the country, yet forbids the same to be served to the defeated Polynices. Antigone, the sister of the two dead men, is the only one who dares to disobey Creon, serving the rites herself. When discovered, Creon opts for her exemplary punishment... Antigone, daughter of the Theban king Oedipus and his wife (and mother) Iokasta, is one of the greatest characters of Greek mythology and world drama. Sophocles in particular rose her to fame in his eponymous tragedy, written around 442 BC, a chief work of Ancient Greek theatre. For Jan Frič, this is the third ancient play he will direct at the NT Drama, again in a new translation and retelling by Matyáš Havrda and Petr Borkovec.

Antigone

Bedřich Smetana’s last completed opera, The Devil’s Wall, the fruit of collaboration with Eliška Krásnohorská, who penned the librettos for his previous operas The Kiss and The Secret, bears both its originally intended comic nature and, more significantly, a final lyrical tone. The composer evidently identified with the character of the ageing nobleman Vok, projecting his own feelings, perhaps ever more so than before. This remarkable work can thus be interpreted as, among other things, a reflection on Smetana's life, one fraught with emotional upheavals.

The Devil’s Wall

National Theatre Prague

Today Václav Trojan (1907–1983) is known primarily as a composer of outstanding scores for a number of 20th-century Czech films. The most noteworthy are the soundtracks to Jiří Trnka’s world-renowned animated movies Bayaya, Old Czech Legends, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Good Soldier Schweik; Bořivoj Zeman’s fairy tale Once Upon a Time There Was a King ..., featuring Jan Werich in the lead role; and Otakar Vávra’s August Sunday. Moreover, Trojan created the ballets Prince Bayaya and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which were performed to acclaim at the National Theatre in Prague, and the stage poem Golden Gate, to folk motives. He wrote one opera, Kolotoč (Carousel), for children young and old, as the secondary title indicates. The owner of a merry-go-round invites children to climb aboard: “If you want to see Indians, a kangaroo and gorillas, take a seat on the carousel!” And indeed: in the scenes that follow children are taken on dreamy trips to an African rainforest, the Australian Outback, an Indian jungle, as well as to the world of American film. Characterised by bounteous instrumentation and exquisite melody, Trojan’s music co-creates a colourful fantasy story.

Přemysl Janda

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 2 - Dec 29, 2026

Madame Bovary · Národní divadlo

4 - 11 Sep, 2026

Dangerous Liaisons · Národní divadlo

Oct 13, 2026 - May 24, 2027

Frankenstein · Národní divadlo

Nov 11, 2026 - Mar 30, 2027

Scamsterdam · Národní divadlo

18 - 23 Nov, 2026

The Bacchae · Národní divadlo

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