This chapter explores how Czech translations and productions of Die Zauberflöte intertwined with the development of Czech national culture between the late eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries. The history of the Czech Zauberflöte adaptations illustrates the gradual transformation of the Czech national movement from a branch of Bohemian regional patriotism into a confident and even aggressive nationalistic movement with strong anti-German tendencies. Die Zauberflöte was the first Mozart opera to be translated into Czech in 1794. In the early nineteenth century, Czech nationalists called for a new translation that would express their anti-German sentiments. Similar sentiments also dominated Czech criticism of Die Zauberflöte in the 1860s, according to which Mozart’s Singspiel was inferior to his Italian operas. In the 1880s, the Czech National Theater managed to incorporate Die Zauberflöte into the canon of national operas, but only by suppressing Schikaneder’s original plot and rearranging Mozart’s music.

This chapter explores the relationship between political developments in Bohemia from the 1790s to the 1880s and the concept of fidelity to “authentic” texts and music (Werktreue) in Mozart’s operas. The idea of Werktreue appeared in Prague in the 1790s in response to Bohemian patriotism and negative attitudes to the central government in Vienna. In the 1820s, Czech nationalists embraced similar attitudes in approaching Don Giovanni, and both the first Czech production of 1825 and the first production of the work at the Czech National Theater (1884) showcased the opera with musical numbers that were cut in contemporaneous German productions. German-Bohemians appropriated Werktreue as well but understood “authentic” performances of Don Giovanni as a link to the ideals of a pan-German national culture. By the time of the 1887 Don Giovanni centennial celebrations, however, some German-Bohemian critics considered Werktreue in Mozart’s operas antithetical to true German art under the influence of Wagnerian ideas.

This chapter focuses on the history of three Mozart monuments in Prague: a Mozart foundation in Prague’s university library established in 1837 to compete with the plans for a Mozart monument in Salzburg; a German Mozart monument that was to be built in the city center in 1914; and Bertramka, a suburban estate where Mozart supposedly lived during his Bohemian visits and where he purportedly finished Don Giovanni. All three commemorative sites were embroiled in various Czech–German national conflicts. The chapter focuses on the process through which Bertramka transformed into a national shrine and the patriotic myths that contributed to this transformation. Whereas Czech commentators viewed Bertramka as a monument to Mozart’s ties to the Czechs, German Bohemians considered it a symbolic site of German culture. Patriotic and nationalist concerns eventually imbued the myths about Mozart and Bertramka with an aura of truth.

This chapter explores how Bohemians, Czechs, and German Bohemians projected their views of Bohemia’s relationship to the Habsburg dynasty onto La clemenza di Tito between 1791 and 1891. The opera initially expressed the Bohemians’ allegiance to Habsburg emperors and was used to commemorate various Habsburg anniversaries. In 1873, this pro-Habsburg symbolism aligned with the political interests of German Bohemians, when Tito was performed in the German Theater to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Emperor Franz Joseph’s rule and the defeat of the 1871 Fundamental Articles, in which the emperor promised to acknowledge Bohemian autonomy to Czech leaders. At the same time, already by the 1790s, some Bohemian commentators associated the opera with anti-Habsburg sentiments. This symbolic meaning became particularly prominent in 1891, when the Czech National Theater’s centennial production of La clemenza di Tito was canceled because of fears that it would incite anti-German and anti-dynastic passions.

This chapter focuses on the politics of Carmen reception in Prague between 1880 and 1945. During this period, Carmen was performed not only in Czech, at the National and Vinohrady Theatres, but also in German, at the Estates Theatre and later also the New German Theatre. Due to the opera’s enormous popularity, various Prague productions often featured famous international Carmen performers and notable conductors, such as Blech, Zemlinsky, and Szell. Prague’s critics discussed Czech and German performances of Carmen not only in terms of artistic issues, but Carmen criticism also became a site of nationalistic debates. Although Carmenis a French opera, in Prague, it was often discussed in connection to Czech and German cultural politics. Whereas a group of Czech and German critics approached Carmen as a progressive, proto-Czech or quasi-Germanic opera, other critical reactions were mostly negative, viewing it as too cosmopolitan and an immoral, commercial anathema to national art.