Newsletter ATI 2/2011

Intimate spectacles of the Prague Quadrennial

The PQ took place in the name of grandness and megalomania. The programme was too wide that it was not possible for one person to see and perceive everything it offered. It was enriched by the Intersection project which becomes an inseparable part of Prague life.

A new circus that grows on theatre soil

Circus La Putyka staged its new performance Up End Down just before Christmas. It introduced another attempt for new circus after a while (after the La Putyka performance). How has the new performance matured until its first re-run in March?

OPERA Festival – thinking about Czech opera scene

Ten professional opera theatres are in operation in the Czech Republic. The ensembles meet in Prague once in two years and they introduce their best stagings within the OPERA festival.

News from Puppet Theatre

Great Mastering of a Word Bush

Director Hana Burešová develops not only common and significantly viewer-oriented repertoire but also her view of poetic theatre which is focused on a narrower circle of audience. It is even more difficult to stage Paul Claudel's The Break of Noon than her previous performances of Seneca's Phaedra and Calderón's The Surgeon of His Honour in Czech theatre environment where the meaning of poetic words is strongly suppressed.

Nebeský's SY is for viewers who like to ask

Director Jan Nebeský has staged his new performance SY in MeetFactory, Prague. He cooperated with people who are connected with this space – visual artist Michal Pěchouček, actor Karel Dobrý and dramaturg Jan Horák.

The Prague Quadrennial crowned the season

Many premieres took place in the past three months, i.e. in the last quarter of the theatre season. We choose the staging called SY prepared by director Jan Nebeský in MeetFactory, Prague, new Petr Nikl's performance I am Your Hare and Bad Clowns from Spitfire Company. Performance occupied an important place at the Prague Quadrennial and we also introduce Intimacy and Spectacle staged in Intersection.

The Czech team worked in Berlin

Jiří Adámek was a visiting director in Neuköllner Oper, Berlin and he staged Changemakers. He admitted performers, utterances, songs, drums and even a paper bird to a dark kettle of a theatre studio.

Grotesque swaggerers at Theater in Dlouha Street (Divadlo v Dlouhé)

In his production of Our Swaggerers (Naši furianti), one of the best known Czech realist dramas of the nineteenth century, director Jan Born invaded the stage at Theatre in Dlouhá Street (Divadlo v Dlouhé) with, instead of realism, grotesque.

OTHER NEWS OF THE ARTS AND THEATRE INSTITUTE

Too much opera?

A question whether the Czech Republic is able to finance two state opera (and ballet) companies – one in the National Theatre and the other one in the State Opera Prague – has risen in the time of government cuts and various economic precautions at the end of the last year.

The return of Parsifal

The ensemble of the National Theatre opera staged the premiere of Wagner's final opera Parsifal one month before Easter. This "Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage"/"Bühnenweihfestspiel" as Wagner called his piece returned to the stage of the National Theatre after 97 years.

The Czech team worked in Berlin

Jiří Adámek was a visiting director in Neuköllner Oper, Berlin and he staged Changemakers. He admitted performers, utterances, songs, drums and even a paper bird to a dark kettle of a theatre studio.