Až k hořkému konci – Ludvová Jitka (2012)

The work, based on the author's years of research and study of sources, deals with the history of the most important period of a phenomenon that was almost erased from public consciousness for more than four decades after World War II, even though it was an integral part of Prague's cultural life at the time, and the history of the Czech National Theatre would necessarily be incomplete without reference to it: the Prague German Theatre. The author chose the year 1888 as a starting point, when the New German Theatre in Vinohrady (today's State Opera Prague) was opened. The book not only traces the development of musical theatre, which had an extraordinary artistic level in Prague thanks to personalities such as Angelo Neumann, Gustav Mahler, or Alexander Zemlinsky, and has recently received some attention in smaller studies, but also the development of drama and other theatrical genres. The author places this development in a broader historical context, and her work thus transcends the field of theatre studies, creating a foundational image of the history of Prague society and Czech-German relations from the second half of the 19th century to World War II. Six chapters chronologically follow individual historical periods, while the seventh chapter summarizes the author's findings on...