Who was Josef Svoboda

The Czech cultural environment gave the world three extraordinary personalities after the Second World War: Miloš Forman, Milan Kundera and Josef Svoboda. No other Czech artist has achieved such a fundamental position on the world cultural scene in his field.

Josef Svoboda was born in the town of Čáslav on May 5, 1920. He was trained as a cabinet-maker and later studied at the Prague School of Interior Design. He began his theatre career with an amateur company at the Smetana Museum during the Second World War. After the war, he joined the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. During this time, he started work for the Grand Opera of the 5th of May, a company striving for innovative operatic staging techniques. In 1948, he started working for the National Theatre, co-founding the famous era of this theatre house with the directors Otomar Krejča, Alfréd Radok, Miroslav Macháček and Jaromír Pleskot. He also collaborated on outstanding opera productions, mostly with the directors Bohumil Hrdlička and Václav Kašlík. In 1950, Svoboda became its artistic and technological manager; in 1970–79 he served as chief scenographer. The start of the 1960s saw the launch of Svoboda’s dazzling international career. His name was brought to wider attention by Laterna Magika, a theatre production that playfully combined the live presence of actors with film, which Svoboda prepared with the director Alfréd Radok for EXPO 58 in Brussels. International collaborations soon followed. Throughout his life, he worked with numerous leading directors, conductors and choreographers such as Laurence Olivier, John Dexter, Leonard Bernstein and Roland Petit.

In 1974, he was appointed artistic director of Laterna Magika after it had become part of the National Theatre; after it became independent again in 1992 he was appointed director. He died in Prague after a long illness on April 8, 2002. His only unfulfilled dream was to build a theatre building in Prague that would correspond to his theatre experience and requirements.

Josef Svoboda was always more appreciated abroad than at home. His many awards include honorary doctorates from the Royal College of Arts in London (1969), Western Michigan University (1984), and the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (1986). He was also awarded the Chevalier de l´Ordre des Arts et des Letters (1976) and Chevalier de la Legio Honneur, France (1993).