The Legend of Erin

Date:	October 16, 2025 \| 19:00 (Thu)
Venue:	The National Theatre in Prague
Duration:	approx. 3 hours
Intermission:	No
Status:	Available

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The Legend of Erin: music lovers will be afforded the opportunity to see and hear a truly remarkable opera

The composer and conductor Otakar Ostrčil (1879–1935) is a major figure in the history of the National Theatre Opera. He successfully linked up to the era of Karel Kovařovic, who in 1919 engaged him as a dramaturge and after whose death he assumed the post of the opera company’s director. In addition to nurturing the traditional repertoire, Ostrčil paid great attention to contemporary Czech and international music. During his tenure at Prague’s National Theatre, he entrusted premieres of his own operas to Brno, a case in point being The Legend of Erin, set to a play by Julius Zeyer (1841–1901), first performed on 16 June 1921 at the Na hradbách (today’s Mahen) Theatre. The National Theatre first presented the opera on 14 March 1923. The Legend of Erin was most recently performed, in a shortened concert version, at the Estates Theatre, within the 1982 Prague Spring festival. The new production, to premiere in 2025, will mark the 90th anniversary of Otakar Ostrčil’s death. After decades of its absence from Czech stages, music lovers can hear a truly remarkable opera again.

The author of the libretto, the writer and playwright Julius Zeyer, drew inspiration from Celtic myths, as recounted in works by the French historians and philologists Henri d’Arbois de Jubainville and Théodore Hersart de La Villemarqué, as well as the Scottish poet James Macpherson’s The Poems of Ossian. The mythical bard Ossian and his father Fingal (King Finn), as well as King Cormac, feature in Zeyer’s play and Ostrčil’s opera, depicting a gripping story of forbidden love, betrayal and revenge, set in Ancient Ireland.

The Legend of Erin has been undertaken by the conductor Robert Jindra, Music Director of the National Theatre Opera, and the stage director Jiří Heřman, artists well known to the Prague audience.

Performing:

National Theatre Orchestra

Important:

The purchased tickets cannot be returned or exchanged
No discounts are provided
Theatre is a cultural institution. Please respect the common principles of appropriate behaviour and clothing.
The program may be subject to change
The price includes service fee of 3,7 € (100,- CZK)

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The National Theatre in Prague

Address:	Národní 2 , Praha 1
Capacity:	933
Type:	Theatre
Winter heating:	Yes
Wheelchair access:	Yes

The National Theatre is the most important and representative theatre of the Czech Republic

The Prague National Theatre was built from the desire of the Czech people for national independence. Its building was financed from the collections on which participated broad masses of people as well as important donators (including the nobility and the emperor himself). The theatre foundation ceremonial on 16th May 1868 became a national celebration.

The theatre was opened in 1881. In the same year the theatre burned down, and this tragic event caused a huge wave of new collections to support the restoration of the theatre. The Prague National Theatre was re-opened in 1883 by the opera Libuše by Bedřich Smetana and since then it has been serving as a place of Czech national identity and as a flagship of the Czech culture to these days.

How to get there:

Accessibility by Prague public transport:
metro B (yellow line) - Národni třída station
tram - Národní divadlo stop
Nearest car parking:
The underground car park of the National Theatre