About the ensamble

Although operetta titles have been appearing in the Pilsen Theatre repertoire since its beginnings in the 60s of the 19th century, the operetta ensemble became independent as a artistic body only in 1954 under the management of composer and conductor J. O. Karel who brought a temporarily neglected a classical operetta into the repertoire. Under the management of Miroslav Doutlík in the 60s, the ensemble grew into a body capable to perform the entire range of the entertaining musicals including American musicals. At present the Pilsen musical and operetta ensemble rigorously tries to fulfi l its basic purpose which is, besides staging classical pieces from the “golden repertoire resources” of the world and national musical and operetta heritage, to broaden the repertoire of both genres by staging titles that have not been staged yet as Czech premiers and to encourage new productions of the musical and operetta genres that become world premieres. In 2003 the ensemble presented two new plays. The entertaining musical revue Girl or Boy by playwright and director Antonín Procházka with the original music by Kryštof Marek, and the crucial piece of the season Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, adapted by the director of the ensemble Roman Meluzín, with music composed by J. P. Muchow and lyrics by Marek “Mardoša“ Huňát. The style range of these two plays – a witty jazz revue on one hand side and a rough and bitter dance party on the other hand – cannot be possibly more far apart. And this openness is maintained in years to come by the theatre. In 2004 a new operetta called Ferdinand was staged in cooperation with script writer Karel Šíp and composer Zdenek Merta. The following year the The Jungle Book musical was born, created specifi cally for this Pilsen ensemble. Its authors were composer Ondřej Brousek and librettist Radek Balaš, currently a director and choreographer of a very successful play.

In the context of the entire country, the eff ort of this theatre to increase awareness about the classical and contemporary repertoire by staging titles that are not well known in the Czech Republic is very important. The two most prominent Czech translators of musical lyrics, Michal Prostějovský and Adam Novák, have been invited to cooperate. Therefore, Rodger’s Carousel was staged as the Czech premiere as well as Sullivan’s operetta Pirates from Penzance translated by Monika Bártová. The ensemble wants to continue to go this route. Within a year there will be three Czech premiers: Monty Python’s Spamalot, Czech musical performance Around the World in 80 Days (only staged in Poland so far) and already “classical” American musical Gypsy. Besides key director and ensemble director Roman Meluzín, there are other permanent guest directors and choreographers, the best ones in their fi eld such as directors Petr Novotný a Radek Balaš and choreographer Pavel Strouhal.

The Pilsen ensemble is calling on all individual artists from the wide spectrum of theatre and music worlds for cooperation – the experienced ones with the musical background from the stages such as of the Prague Spiral, Goya Music Hall, Hybernie, National Theatre of Karlín, Semafor or Municipal Theatre of Brno, as well as progressive leaders of the contemporary musical scene from TataBoys or Monkey Business. The artistic quality of the ensemble production has been acknowledged by many prestigious Thálie Awards given to a range of musical actors: Jan Ježek was awarded for his role in Fred Graham’s musical Kiss Me, Kate; Stanislava Topinková-Fořtová, after previous nominations, for the role of Mrs. Johnston in Blood Brothers; Daniela Šinkorová for Sally Bowles in Cabaret; and Zuzana Kolářová-Krištofová for the role of Velma in Chicago.