(Ger. Reichenberg).
City in Czech Republic. A north Bohemian city it has both Czech and German traditions. The roll of its natives includes Christoph Demantius (1567–1643), Joseph Proksch (1794–1864), who founded a music school in the city and was later, in Prague, Smetana's piano teacher, and the composer-conductor Karel Vacek (1902–82).
There are records of a performance of Die Zauberflöte in 1796; opera then gained a regular home in the Zunfttheater, which opened in 1820. This theatre burnt down in 1879 and was replaced four years later by the Stadttheater, raised by public subscription and designed in the German neo-Renaissance style by Fellner and Helmer; there were reconstructions in 1966 and again in 1974–6 (651 seats). Until 1918 the German Stadttheater Reichenberg presented plays, operas and operettas. Friedrich Sommer, who directed the Stadttheater for much of the time between 1922 and 1934, invited leading conductors such as Karl Rankl and Heinrich Jalowetz, and created an ambitious repertory that included works by Wagner, Verdi, Strauss, Musorgksy, Smetana, Dvořák and Janáček. His immediate successors Oskar Basch (1934–6) and Paul Barnay (1936–8) had to struggle against fascist tendencies. Meanwhile, between 1924 and 1938, Czech opera was regularly brought to the city by the Olomouc company.
A permanent Czech theatre, the Severočeské Národní Divadlo (North Czech National Theatre), was established after World War II, and after several changes of name became the F.X. Šalda Theatre in 1957. It was controlled by the regional national committee in Ústí nad Labem from 1963 to 1990, when it came under the jurisdiction of the Liberec municipality. Its opera compnay was progressively consolidated under Jaromír Žid (1946–54), Jindřich Bubeníček (1955–60) and Rudolf Vašata (1960–71), with an emphasis on Czech and Italian works. There was a 20th-century festival in 1962, with operas by Martinů, Krejčí, Pauer, Prokofiev, Britten and Lieberman, and a Verdi cycle in 1963. The theatre orchestra gives concerts, as did, between 1958 and the end of the 1970s, the symphony orchestra of the music school, which worked with the radio station in the city.
There is a great choral tradition. The activities of church choirs were interrupted between 1945 and 1989, but then revived, especially at St Antonín. Ještěd, a mixed choir founded in 1907 by Czech workers, has sung nationally and internationally, as has the children's choir Severáček (‘the little northerner’), founded in 1958.
Stadttheater Reichenberg, nos.1–18 (1828–9)
Severočeské Národní divadlo v Liberci 1945–1948 [The North Czech National Theatre in Liberec] (Liberec, 1948)
Divadlo F.X. Šaldy v Liberci 1945–1960 [The F.X. Šalda Theatre in Liberec] (Liberec, 1960)
20 let Divadla F.X. Šaldy v Liberci 1945–1965 [20 years of the F.X. Šalda Theatre in Liberec] (Liberec, 1965)
30 svobodných let, 30 let českého divadla v Liberci [30 years of freedom, 30 years of the Czech Theatre in Liberec] (Liberec, 1976)
J. Janáček: ‘Divadlo v čase nepohody (Německé divadlo v Liberci v letech 1934–1938)’ [Theatre in hard times (The German Theatre in Liberec 1934–8)], Divadelní revue, iii (1993), 3–16
L. Tůma and R. Hrdinová: 50 let české opery v Liberci [50 years of the Czech Opera in Liberec] (Liberec, 1995)
EVA HERRMANNOVÁ