Saxa Loquuntur: Prague’s Speaking Stones

Abstract

This essay examines two rival cultural institutions built in 1880s Prague: the New German Theater (Neues Deutsches Theater) and the Czech National Theater (Národní divadlo). Although their translational fates were different, the two buildings must be studied together, their cultural meanings emerging from the dialog between them. Opera, more than any other cultural form, was a contested space of national struggle. The stones of both theaters were designed to deliver messages as eloquent, as meaningful, and as ideologically tinted as the musical languages played within them. But as the understanding of the choice of repertoire, the design of the productions, and the tongues in which opera was sung have changed over time, so too have the messages that these buildings deliver. This essay takes as its backdrop not only the stories of these iconic buildings, but more broadly the double cultural history of Prague and the historical and cultural transformations of Central Europe from 1880 to 1960 with the many linguistic conversions, transformations, and remakes which took place there.