Shakespeare in Czechoslovakia

Abstract

This chapter focuses on three operas created in Czechoslovakia, their political significance, and the problems their creators faced when adapting drama for the operatic stage. It first considers the relationship between Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors and its operatic adaptation Upheaval in Ephesus by the Czech composer Iša Krejčí. Even though written during the Second World War with the wish to uplift the Czech people, the piece was later often used by the Communist regime as an example of Czech buffa, sharing happiness as well as propaganda with the audience. The second analysed opera is the 1969 work by Karel Horký entitled Poison from Elsinore, a prequel to Hamlet. In the opera, the main character of Polonius investigates the murder of King Hamlet, yet finds himself trapped in the totalitarian world, pondering on the responsibility of the individual and the greater good. The author of both music and libretto of the third examined opera, Ján Cikker, started composing his Coriolanus under the influence of the Soviet invasion of August 1968. Premiered in 1974, the opera features many parallels between Shakespeare’s Rome and the occupied Czechoslovakia, which Cikker emphasizes by the changes he makes in the process of the adaptation. All three considered operas therefore offer valuable insight into the state of Czechoslovak opera and the reception of Shakespeare’s work in the second half of the twentieth century.