Kačina Palace Theatre (CZ) visit 20 June 2015

On the Emperor Route of Perspectiv, we find the Kačina Palace Theatre.

Kačina Palace, one of the most beautiful Classicist buildings in the Czech Republic, was designed for count Jan Rudolf Chotek by the German architect Ch. F. Schuricht in 1796 and erected in 1806–22, with additional designs by J. P. Jöndl.

The castle theatre is located in a pavilion at the end of the north wing, together with an unfinished castle chapel. The theatre, too, remained incomplete for a long time and was inaugurated only in 1851. It hosted performances of amateur actors from the counts family; Count Rudolf Karel Chotek was also the author of some of the plays. From this period the richly decorated auditorium, part of the stage machinery and some stage decorations have been preserved.

The audience room is rather stuffy and cramped with strange proportions
the parterre is very undeep (only 6 or 7 rows), but with it's 2 balconies it's very high.
Surprisingly enough, the sightlines from the top balcony are not that bad.

Everywhere, but certainly on the ceiling you can see wonderfull decorations.
A lot of trompe l'oeil is used to make fake cornices etc.

Parts of a set were still on stage, but I'm not sure they fit together as they should.
On the middle backdrop, you see very nice perspective painting, depicting a ceiling.

The low understage was equipped with machinery to move the wings.
Here you see the wings in their slots:

Behind every set of slots was hole reinforced with metal.
It is tough this was the hole to hold the pen of a lighting boom.

The understage was not accessible, but we managed to take a few pictures trough a hatch:

The grid is equipped with pulleys under the grid.
The tower is quite high, I guess about 10 m, so it must be hard to maintain.
At the sides we can see guides for the counterweights.

The thing that brought tears to our eyes was the condition of the stock of the painted backdrops.
At the time it was not possible to unroll any of them, but they are clearly in need of some restauration.

In the restaurant across the street the wildest plans were made to safe this theatre and its sets from deterioration.
We found out the building is actually owned be the Ministry of Agriculture, and it seams it will not be easy to get access there.

Practical info:
According to the Perspectiv website:

Zámecké divadlo ∙ Zámek Kačina ∙ Svatý Mikuláš 51 ∙ 284 01 Svatý Mikuláš ∙ Czech Republic

Tel.: +420 327 571 170, +420 602 187 700 ∙ E-mail:nzm.kacina@nzm.cz ∙ www.nzm.cz

Visits: guided tours Tue–Sun 09:00–16:00 (May–Sept); Sat–Sun 09:00–16:00 or on appointment

(April & Oct); on appointment only (Nov–March, min. 10 visitors)

We were on tour organised by the OISTAT Timeline Group, so we arrived there on appointment.

The castle is rather out of the way in the countryside.

Access by public transport will be complicated.