Madame Bovary

A stage adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s famous novel from 1857. It is a timeless story about the dullness of common life, dreamed fantasies, and omnipresent advertisement for happiness.

Naive Ema is dying to experience the exciting life and eternal love she only knowns from romance novels. But her dreams and rosy visions clash with the boring reality of her marriage to a prudent and caring country doctor. Ordinariness and banality suffocate her, random love encounters bring temporary excitement but cannot satisfy her fantasies. She is constantly haunted by the desire for all that’s new, better, and greater, but the glittering ideal world that lures her eventually brings her down in the crash with the ruthless reality. Permanent dissatisfaction and desire for a better life that seems at hand and purchasable on credit remains highly topical to date.

Madame Bovary conceived as an iconic story of lust, bliss, and intoxication; as a tragedy caused by the power of disillusionment that is stronger than the will to live; as the immortal power of romantic fantasies and cruel unattainability of satisfaction. Madame Bovary is staged at the Estates Theatre almost a hundred years after the previous production, directed by Jiří Frejka with Olga Scheinpflugová in the title role in 1938.

Language: In Czech, surtitles in English

Premiere: November 14, 2024

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