Smetana’s Litomyšl

Visit the 51st International Opera Festival on 12 June - 6 July 2009.

The international opera festival “Smetana’s Litomyšl” is, after the Prague Spring festival, the second oldest music festival in the Czech Republic and, at the same time, is among the largest regular festivals of classical music in the Czech Republic.

Since 1949, the great music festival has been organized almost each year in Litomyšl, an old East-Bohemian town where Bedřich Smetana, the founder of Czech national music, was born.

The festival's main center is right on the premises of the magnificent Litomyšl State Castle, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage in 1999. Main events commonly take place in the Second Courtyard with excellent acoustics. Other venues include Castle halls, Litomysl churches and cathedrals, the Smetana's House and Pardubice - capital of the region.