Janáček Theatre

The Janáček Theatre is Brno's main opera and ballet house and the home venue of the National Theatre Brno company. The building seats around 1,350 and has a large stage capable of full operatic productions. It is particularly worth visiting for opera — Janáček's own works, including Jenůfa and The Cunning Little Vixen, are performed here with an authenticity and understanding that Brno can claim above any other city.

The theatre's programme runs from September through June. Ticket prices are considerably lower than comparable venues in Prague or Vienna, and productions are of genuinely high quality. The building exterior on Rooseveltova Street makes a distinctive contrast with the 19th-century Mahen Theatre a few hundred metres away — the difference in architectural eras tells the story of the 20th century in a single block.

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A story
The Janáček Theatre was designed in the 1930s but not completed until 1965 — the intervening three decades included World War II and the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, which repeatedly delayed construction and altered the design. The result is a building that blends pre-war functionalism with socialist-era austerity, a hybrid that gives it an austere grandeur quite different from the gilded excess of the older Mahen Theatre. It is named after Leoš Janáček, Brno's most famous composer, who spent the better part of his creative life in the city.