Jaroslav Kvapil
{{Short description|Czech poet, theatre director, translator, playwright and librettist}}
{{about|the Czech poet, playwright and librettist|the Czech composer and conductor|Jaroslav Kvapil (composer)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Jaroslav Kvapil
| image = Jaroslav Kvapil.jpg
| caption = Jaroslav Kvapil in 1940
| birth_date = {{birth date|1868|9|25|df=y}}
| birth_place = Chudenice, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary
| death_date = {{death date and age|1950|1|10|1868|9|25|df=y}}
| death_place = Prague, Czechoslovakia
| occupation = Poet, theatre director, translator, playwright, librettist
| nationality = Czech
| notableworks =
| signature = Jaroslav Kvapil signature (1932).jpg
}}
Jaroslav Kvapil (25 September 1868 – 10 January 1950) was a Czech poet, theatre director, translator, playwright and librettist.
Early life, education and family
Jaroslav Josef Kvapil was born on 25 September 1868 in Chudenice, into the family of a psysician. He attended schools in Klatovy and Plzeň and graduated from the secondary school in 1886. He then gradually tried to study three fields (medicine, philology, law) at the Charles University, but finished none of them.{{cite web |title=Kvapil, Jaroslav|url=https://encyklopedie.idu.cz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=192:kvapil-jaroslav&Itemid=108&lang=cs|work=Česká divadelní encyklopedie|language=cs|access-date=2025-06-12}}
Jaroslav Kvapil was married to actress Hana Kvapilová (née Kubešová) from 1894 until her death in 1907. They met in 1890. In 1910 he married for the second time, this time to actress Zdenka Rydlová (1884–1955). They had a daughter, Eva.
Career and late life
In 1888, Kvapil made his literary debut, when he published his poems in the Světozor magazine. From 1891, he worked as a journalist. From 1900, he was a director and Dramaturg at the National Theatre in Prague, where he introduced plays by Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen and Maxim Gorky into the repertory. Later he was a director at the Vinohrady Theatre (1921–1928). He wrote six plays, but is today chiefly remembered as the librettist of Antonín Dvořák's Rusalka.[https://books.google.com/books?id=IuprrJF82B4C&dq=%22jaroslav+kvapil&pg=PA127 The Metropolitan Opera Stories of the Great Operas By John W. Freeman, Metropolitan Opera (New York, N.Y.), p. 127]
Kvapil was the principal author of the Manifesto of Czech writers of 1917, signed by over two hundred leading Czechs, favouring the concept of Czech self-government.J. Poláček, Manifest českých spisovatelů (2007)
He was a prominent freemason, from 1923 to 1924 he was first Grand Master of the National Grand Lodge of Czechoslovakia.{{cite web |title=Seznam Velmistrů VLČR|url=https://www.vlcr.cz/obedience/seznam-velmistru-vlcr-nvlcs/ |publisher=Veliká lóže České republiky |access-date=21 September 2023 |language=cs}}
Kvapil died on 10 January 1950 in Prague, aged 81. He had a state funeral. He was buried in Prague, but since 1955, his ashes have been in the family tomb in Chudenice.
References
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Category:People from Klatovy District
Category:Czechoslovak National Democracy politicians
Category:Members of the Revolutionary National Assembly of Czechoslovakia
Category:20th-century Czech dramatists and playwrights
Category:Czech male dramatists and playwrights
Category:Czech opera librettists
Category:Recipients of the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk
Category:19th-century Czech dramatists and playwrights
Category:20th-century Czech poets
Category:20th-century Czech male writers