Castle Theater

This guide to the Castle Theater in Český Krumlov centers on Lorenz Makh, a Viennese carpenter who spent 1765 and 1766 building rope-and-winch stage machinery for Prince Josef Adam of Schwarzenberg on a stage that had stood in the courtyard since the 1680s. You'll hear how the system works like a sailing ship's rigging, swapping painted scenery in seconds, and about the wings still stacked with eighteenth-century costumes and scenic flats painted by Hans Wetschel and Leo Markl. It raises the question of how such fragile machinery managed to survive so completely intact.