Noc na Karlštejně
About the musical Night at Karlštejn was written by Jaroslav Vrchlický in 1883 at the age of 29. Although young, he was able to understand very well the relationship between the elderly King Charles IV and his young wife.
Noc na Karlštejně
About the musical
The Night at Karlštejn was written by Jaroslav Vrchlický in 1883 at the age of 29. Although young, he was able to understand very well the relationship between the elderly King Charles IV and his young wife. His former love, Sofie Podlipská (sister of Karolina Světlá), resisted the seductions of the young poet because of her age and brought up her daughter Ludmila as a "substitute". And then we are not supposed to reminisce about the good old days...
The play was first performed a year later in 1884 at the Royal National Theatre in Prague, and has remained in the repertoire of Czech theatres without major interruptions ever since.
In the early 1970s, director Zdeněk Podskalský was invited to a dramaturgical meeting of the then Barrandov Film Studio. Historical material drawing on Czech history was considered "the least objectionable" during the normalisation period. Podskalský therefore proposed Night at Karlštejn; he wrote the script himself and invited the then budding artists Karel Svoboda, a composer, and Jiří Štaidl, a lyricist, to collaborate.
The new management of the Karlín Musical Theatre decided to present Night at Karlštejn as a transcription of this film in 2004 in the courtyard of the Nostic Palace. Due to its great success, this musical is still performed today.
