Few orchestras can currently boast in their dramaturgy an opera premiere by the great Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů. The previously unplayed and unpublished version of the opera Mariken von Nimègue will be a gift for all of us lovers not only of his music. Chief conductor Tomáš Netopil will take over the performance.

Beethoven – Pastoral Symphony

Municipal House

The first half of the concert will be of Russian Romanticism music. Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 3 in D Minor by Sergei Rachmaninov is one of his most technically demanding piano concertos. The young British artist Isata Kanneh-Mason will be presented to the audience in Prague. The second part of the evening will be of Russian music of the 20th century. The chief conductor of the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Petr Popelka, will present the neo-classical oratorio-opera Oedipus Rex by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto was written by the French poet and playwright Jean Cocteau, based on Sophocles' tragedy of the same name. The title roles will be played by: Ester Paulů (mezzo-soprano), Jiří Brückler (baritone), Pavel Švingr (bass) and Daniel Matoušek (tenor), with Igor Bareš as the narrator. The artists will be accompanied by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and the male part of the Prague Philharmonic Choir.

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Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto

Rudolfinum

Jakub Hrůša and the Czech Philharmonic Youth Orchestra not only see “eye to eye” but hear “ear to ear” as well. After their first collaboration last season, they set out together this time for Arabia of the Middle Ages in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. In the second half of the programme, the Czech Philharmonic and its Principal Guest Conductor join forces with three vocal soloists and the Prague Philharmonic Choir for Josef Suk’s Epilogue, the finale of his symphonic tetralogy.

Czech Philharmonic • Jakub Hrůša

Mozart’s illustrious operatic oeuvre is rounded off by a work providing both copious entertainment and food for thought, affording a fantastic spectacle and presenting a magical ritual of initiation of the human spirit. All that is encompassed in Die Zauberflöte, and all that can be found in Vladimír Morávek’s colourful production, featuring a thrilling atmosphere and teeming with mysterious symbols. There is something for everyone – adults and children, including, if fear hasn’t consumed them, the very youngest.

Die Zauberflöte

The Estates Theatre

The fruit of the collaboration between the two great creators, Antonín Dvořák and Jaroslav Kvapil, who were close as artists and friends alike, was a magical, dreamy story of the great, unfulfilled desire of the water nymph Rusalka, a work in which Dvořák’s musical genius reached its apex. The fairy-tale atmosphere inspired the composer to create singular, impressionistic music replete with melodic imagination and masterful instrumentation, a suggestive expression of the play of waves and the reflection of moonlight on the surface of a lake, as well as the overwhelming magic of a fairy-tale dream.

Rusalka

State Opera

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 speculations about whether Libuše is Bedřich Smetana’s most mature work within the context of his opera oeuvre, or even within the context of Czech opera in general, whether and how it can stand its ground as against the airiness of The Bartered Bride, the lyricism and absorptive power of Dvořák’s Rusalka, or the emotion and drama of Leoš Janáček’s operas, do not result in definitive conclusions – it will always depend on the angle from which Libuše and any other renowned Czech opera is viewed.

Libuše

National Theatre Prague

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

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.

Jiří Brückler

Events

Upcoming events

Aug 26, 2026 - Feb 14, 2027

Die Zauberflöte · Národní divadlo

Sep 1 - Dec 11, 2026

Rusalka · Národní divadlo

Sep 25, 2026 - May 8, 2027

Le nozze di Figaro · Národní divadlo

Oct 28, 2026

Libuše · Národní divadlo

10 - 31 Dec, 2026

La bohème · Národní divadlo

Past events

17 - 18 Jun, 2026

Beethoven – Pastoral Symphony · Prague Symphony Orchestra

Apr 20, 2026

Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto · Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra

Future and recently performed repertoire

Singer in Oedipus Rex by Stravinsky

Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra

Hunter in Rusalka by Dvořák

Národní divadlo

Marcello in La bohème by Puccini

Národní divadlo

Papageno in Die Zauberflöte by Mozart

Národní divadlo

Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro by Mozart

Národní divadlo

Singer in Epilogue by Suk

Czech Philharmonic

Devil in Mariken de Nimègue by Martinů

Prague Symphony Orchestra

Přemysl in Libuše by Smetana

Národní divadlo

Vok Vítkovic in The Devil's Wall by Smetana

Národní divadlo

About

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