Triptych – SĽUK

Alice

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.

Slovenské Vianoce so SĽUK-om

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.

Johanka z Arku

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.

Je me soulève

Twenty young actors are brought together for a creation lab to create a collective work at one of the great national theatres. Over a full year, they scour contemporary Québécois poetry to tap into the spirit of the times.

Bedřich Smetana: Braniboři v Čechách

Bedřich Smetana: Hubička

Bedřich Smetana: Tajemství

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.

Prodaná nevěsta

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.

Koločava

The production was based on Ivan Olbracht's novel Nikola Šuhaj loupežník (Nikola Šuhaj the Robber). The music draws on Petr Ulrych's famous LP, which was released in 1974, won the Bílá vrána (White Crow) award from Mladý svět magazine, and subsequently inspired a production at Prague's Divadlo Ateliér theater. Among other things, the band Javory was formed on this occasion. The expanded band Javory also plays and sings in the 2002 production of the Brno City Theater, and additional musical numbers were created for it. Of the 25 numbers, more than half are new to the performance. Petr Ulrych won the A. Radok Award for his music. Director and author of the theatrical adaptation Stanislav Moša incorporated film footage into the production, which works wonderfully as a reminiscence of natural beauty. Also worth mentioning is the impressive choreography of the police and bandit choirs and the excellent acting and singing performances, led by Petr Štěpán in the lead role.

S úsměvem idiota

The play S úsměvem idiota (With the Smile of an Idiot) by the duo Vodňanský-Skoumal was composed for the Činoherní klub theater and premiered on May 19, 1969. It was performed with great success until 1973, when administrative measures prevented the duo V+S from performing. The play was never recorded in its entirety. This was only achieved thirty years later, when the duo returned to the Činoherní klub with the play S úsměvem idiota. The recording is a selection of the best works by the successful songwriting duo. We remember the songs "Aristocrat," "Marshals," "At the Opera in La Scala," "Grizzly," and others, as well as their original style of humor, on the sad occasion of the death of composer, pianist, and occasional lyricist Petr Skoumal.

Tančiareň

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.

Merci Zaza - La Folle Histoire de la Cage aux Folles

A look back at "La Cage aux Folles", which ran non-stop for five years, from February 1973, on the stage of the Théâtre du Palais Royal in Paris. At a time when homosexuality was considered a crime by the law, Poiret and Serrault achieved great success in boulevard theater. Their success continued on the silver screen, with three Oscar nominations and a Broadway musical. Combining never-before-seen archives from the play, extracts from the film, confessions by Poiret and Serrault, and interviews with witnesses, this is the story of a wild epic.

Honegger’s “Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher” with Alan Gilbert and Marion Cotillard

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.

Rusalka - Opéra National du Capitole de Toulouse

Shumei: The Living Legacy of Kabuki

A look at the succession ceremony in which Ichikawa Danjūrō XIII formally inherited the storied Danjūrō name in Kabuki, Japan’s classical performing art. The film records the behind-the-scenes preparations for the actor’s name-inheritance debut performance.

Mount Analogue

A live performance by Charlie Jimenez & Sioul Blaphate hosted as a pre-show to Rebel Reel CineClub's 'A Most Unholy Christmas' - a screening of Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain (1973) at Rio Cinema, 17th December, 2024. The performance is a live-theatre and dance piece loosely inspired by Jodorowsky's film and its influenced source Mount Analogue. Through dance, masks, and live-theatre, Mount Analogue navigates a procession of ascension through transforming bodies and shapes. A primordial place of transformation, magic, and symbols.

Losers Cirque Company: Kolaps

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.

Tři holky jako květ

Eliška Balzerová, Iva Pazderková, and Marie Doležalová star in a comedy about life, with all its joys and sorrows. The heroines are women from three generations: an energetic and tolerant grandmother, a perfectionist and therefore stressed single mother, and a crazy, rebellious granddaughter. The play is written in the form of stand-up comedy, which is cleverly woven into the story of one family with its everyday worries and joys, as well as major problems.

L'argent de la vieille

Ženitba

A classic comedy about long-planned courtship and the fear of getting married once and for all performed by actors from Prague's Divadlo Na Jezerce theater.