Koločava

Written in 1865, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was a popular success. All British schoolchildren and their parents knew about the escapades of the young Alice. With a new score by Philip Glass, a figurehead of American minimalism, choreographers Amir Hosseinpour and Jonathan Lunn reimagine and reinvent Lewis Carroll's fantastical world. Freed from the original narrative, the dancers of the OnR Ballet play a new gallery of contemporary creatures and characters, joined by actress Sunnyi Melles.

A veteran theatre artist who lives for his art 'enters' the world of films. Can the film industry hold on to his inimitable artistry?

On June 8, 2024, Oscar-winning French actress Marion Cotillard joined the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for a performance of Arthur Honegger’s oratorio Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher (Joan of Arc at the Stake), conducted by Alan Gilbert, performed at the Berliner Philharmonie in Berlin, Germany and broadcast live on Digital Concert Hall, the online concert hall of the Berliner Philharmonie. In the oratorio, Joan of Arc looks back on her life, her visions, and her successes during a show trial in which she is sentenced to be burned at the stake.

Dancing through Slovak history of the twentieth century. Based on the Theatre du Campagnol performance "Le Bal" by Jean-Claude Penchenat, written by M. Huba and M. Porubjak. A dance locale - a place where people who are looking for partners come together. Lonely individuals become couples, people who were strangers not so long ago become partners and lovers. Outside, conditions change and regimes change, the country is overwhelmed by great history, the whirlwind of the World War, the communist coup, the hopeful spring of 1968, the fraternal occupation, the Hussite normalisation, November 1989 and the collapse of Czechoslovakia. Only those lonely dancers on the dance floor remain the same - with their human longings, their ridiculousness and their unfulfilled dreams.

Triptych – SĽUK

A musical by Ondřej Soukup and Gabriela Osvaldová, starring Lucie Bílá as Joan of Arc. Based on the legend of the French national heroine, the world-famous musical Joan of Arc was created. It became the biggest event on the Prague musical scene in 2000.

The most popular Czech comic opera, with a libretto by Karel Sabina, marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of Bedřich Smetana, in the current production of the National Theater in Prague. For more than 150 years, The Bartered Bride has dominated Czech opera. No one else, not even Smetana himself, has managed to surpass its popularity, which over the years has become part of our national DNA, so to speak. At the time of its creation in the 1860s, however, The Bartered Bride was actually quite a bold experiment – Bedřich Smetana and librettist Karel Sabina masterfully mocked all those who imagined "national opera" as an idyllic picture of the Czech countryside, where national virtues reign supreme.

Shakespeare's tragicomedy about the banality of love, pride and war performed by DJP in Trnava... Troilus and Cressida is a tragicomic play in which Shakespeare cynically portrays the fates of legendary Greek and Trojan heroes, but also the story of one destroyed love, and especially the image of a useless war. A pseudo-historical fresco that has perhaps never been more topical in the domestic socio-political context. What does a Trojan War look like in which the greatest icons of ancient Greece do not want to fight? A kidnapped Helen as a ridiculous pretext; a sulking and proud Achilles wallowing in a tent and refusing to fight; men who rely more on bickering backstage politics than on concrete deeds; pandering, revenge and, as befits a proper Shakespeare, blood and death.

Smetana's penultimate opera premiered on September 18, 1878, at the New Czech Theater. At the National Theater itself, it was staged in the 20th century, for example, from 1980 and 1983, respectively. The 2006 production in the second courtyard of the Litomyšl Castle, which was filmed by Czech Television, is characterized by a minimalist set with an imaginative neon silhouette of Bezděz Castle, as well as the fact that, with two exceptions, all the singers were performing their roles for the first time. Tenor Pavel Černoch, who at that time still had his international career ahead of him, excelled in the role of Vít... Since its creation, The Secret has been considered Smetana's most perfect and mature opera. Even the overture is a remarkably composed and superbly constructed masterpiece. After this successful premiere in Litomyšl, the performance became part of the repertoire of the National Theater.

Liliom, a charismatic early-20th-century carousel operator, loses his livelihood after finding true love and becomes enmeshed in a crime that brings guilt, punishment, and a slim chance at redemption.

Emily and Henry are two elderly actors whose marriage has lasted 45 years. In their modest suburban apartment, they are preparing for the annual highlight of the year, the Academy Awards ceremony. Both hope that their life's work will finally be recognized. They nervously discuss appropriate attire, quote from famous theater roles, including those they probably never played, argue, and make up. When Jeff from the delivery service brings them lunch, they finally have the audience they have been missing for so many years. Although Jeff brings them lunch every day and is, so to speak, part of the family, this time he surprises them greatly.

A theater director and a young director await an actress’s decision on a role, triggering a scathing critique of how TV’s degraded practices and commercial pressures marginalize true artistry. Through the director’s expansive monologue, inspired by Juraj Kukura’s ethos, he reflects on his life in culture, his convictions about theater, colleagues, and the survival of artistic integrity in today’s climate.

Maryša

Live broadcast of an acrobatic light show by a Czech contemporary circus troupe from the end of the Letní Letná festival... The Czech troupe Losers Cirque Company is definitely on par with many foreign troupes in the field of contemporary circus. This is evidenced by the highly successful premiere of the performance Kolaps (Collapse), which took place at the end of the Letní Letná festival on August 31, 2017. The great strength of Kolaps lies not only in its physical and acrobatic perfection, but also in its subtle humor, play with light, and live music. That is why this amusing performance, which depicts human life from birth to death, is returning to Letní Letná this year. Czech Television is delighted to be involved, not least because it will be the first complete performance by a Czech company in this genre to be shown on our screens.

Bedřich Smetana: Hubička

Rusalka - Opéra National du Capitole de Toulouse

A chamber play depicts the tense yet tender daily interactions between an elderly intellectual grandmother mourning her late husband and her daughter’s child on maternity leave, who lives alone in the family’s large house. Their generational clashes over values, technology, and changing social norms reveal both alienation and moments of mutual understanding.

A new circus performance about angels and humans, whose heroes wander between earth and heaven, between memories, the present, and the world of fantasy. Up End Down is Cirku La Putyka's second project and one of its most successful – the ensemble has been performing it for over ten years... The story of a man who lives only with his memories. He is unable to detach himself from them and live freely and at ease. Everyone sometimes thinks about what will happen when that "final moment" comes. What will it look like and what will follow? Up End Down is a look at the journey from birth to death through fantasy, a journey between earth and heaven. A crossroads of genres, streets, heaven and earth, birth and death, memories and the present, smiles and tears, ups and downs.

T. Dianiška's documentary fiction from behind the scenes of the assassination of R. Heydrich, in which the real story is intertwined with comic exaggeration, pop culture references, and harsh humor. 294 Brave Men was written by Tomáš Dianiška for the Divadlo po Palmovkou theater, where he also staged it with the local ensemble. As the title of the play suggests, the protagonists of Operation Anthropoid are not the main heroes in this case. 294 Brave Men refers to the people from the domestic resistance who paid with their lives for helping the paratroopers and whose names are now borne by streets in Libeň and the surrounding Prague districts. T. Dianiška treats historical facts with respect, but at the same time quite freely, and he depicts the background of "the greatest heroic deed in our history" with the help of humor, often very dark humor.

From Adam to the Three Kings is the subtitle of the dance comedy Slovak Christmas with SĽUK. A traditional opus as a comedy about the creation of the world and what came after.