The National Theatre was built with money collected from the public, coin by coin, at a time when Czech was the language of the countryside and German ran the city. The cornerstone was laid in 1868 under the motto later carved above the stage — Národ sobě, the nation to itself. It opened provisionally in June 1881, and in August, before the work was finished, a fire started during roofing and gutted the building. The second collection raised a million gulden in forty-seven days, and the theatre reopened on 18 November 1883 with Smetana's opera Libuše.
From outside it is a heavy neo-Renaissance block on the embankment with a blue-and-gold roof and bronze chariots on the corners, and that roof is what catches the low sun from across the river. Inside is the opposite: gold leaf, painted ceilings and a hand-painted stage curtain, all produced by a single group of young artists still known collectively as the National Theatre generation. It works as a theatre most nights of the week, with opera, ballet and drama in repertoire.