The autumn ballet premiere will mark the symbolic culmination of an era — it will be the last full-length original work by artistic director Mário Radačovský created during his tenure in Brno. The upcoming production, titled Mask, will simultaneously represent a remarkable departure from the grand, lavish frescoes and biographical narratives so characteristic of his previous work (Beethoven, Coco Chanel, Warhol). This time, the choreographer consciously abandons linear storytelling and concrete historical facts. The focus will not be on biographical data, but on a captivating dialogue between music and the essence of humanity.

The genius of Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt will serve as a key to a deeper message; the production will be conceived as a succession of images that harness the emotional power of waltzes, nocturnes, and rhapsodies — not to illustrate, but to unmask human nature. Through this virtuosic and emotionally charged music, the work will tear away the idealised mask of humanism and reveal an uncomfortable possibility: that our civility is merely a thin veneer, one that crumbles with unsettling speed. Confronted with today’s world, the production will pose an urgent question — whether beneath the surface of noble values such as law and tolerance, latent violence does not in fact lie dormant, and whether the old social contract still holds. The musical dramaturgy, dominated by solo and concerto piano repertoire, will form an inseparable whole with the work’s central idea.

The performance will be entrusted to piano virtuoso Ivo Kahánek, who has collaborated with the Ballet of the National Theatre Brno on several previous occasions. Mask will offer the choreographer space for a distinctive neoclassical expression, whose strength will lie in the ability to capture the subtlest nuances of human emotion. The absence of a narrative will thus allow pure dance virtuosity to shine — serving not only as a further artistic challenge for the soloists and ensemble of the NdB Ballet, but functioning, within the context of the work, above all as a mirror held up to our fragile civilisation.

Premiere: 25 September 2026 at the Janáček Theatre

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