Love's labour's lost

Romantic comedy

Ferdinand, king of Navarre, and his three courtiers take an absurd pledge: they will only addict themselves to studies for three years and will give up all joys and delights – women, food and sleep … However, everything changes when a French princess with her suite comes to the court of Navarre. Despite their vows, the four men fall in love and start to woo four girls … This is a beginning of Shakespeare’s comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost which is not performed very frequently, but is of great interest. It is a great feast of language and fireworks of verbal wit celebrating delights and sorrows of amorous feeling with cunning beauty of words and resembling Mozart’s best comic operas with its spontaneous playfulness and ferocity. That is why, the authors of the performance, the director Jana Kališová and the dramatic adviser Jiří Záviš, substituted a final play About Nine Giants – to be prepared in honour of the king – with a part of Mozart’s opera Così Fan Tutte where female parts are sung by men … Mozart’s music is omnipresent throughout the performance and is played live by a music band.