Sunday, October 25, 2009

Mahenovo divadlo

The Mahen Theater is located at Malinovského náměstí (Malinovsky Square) on Rooseveltova 17. It's kind of cool that that the theater is on a street named after U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.


The theatre was opened on November 14, 1882. Originally, the Deutsches Stadttheater (German City Theatre) was the German opera house. After WWI it became Divadlo na Hradbách (Theatre On the Wall) when it passed hands to the new Czechoslovak state. The first dramatic advisor was Jíří Mahen, a Czech writer and playwright, and it was named after him in 1965.

Mahenovo divadlo was the first theater on the European continent to be fully equipped with electric lighting. While Edison didn't make it to the installation he did visit the theater 25 years later, in 1911. 





One of Edison's bulbs and a decorative copper case is on display next to the main staircase. The theater has been proclaimed as one of the National Technical Monuments of the Czech Republic.

The theatre is really beautiful. The architectural style of building exterior is neo-Renaissance while the interior is neo-Baroque. I can't wait to see what it looks like at night during a performance of some kind.

There are some more pictures of the theater already posted on Flickr.

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