“I liked the region around Ostrava very much thanks to Bezruč, for whom, I do not know why, I fell crazy as a student. I was very interested in everything around him. Even the language. But when I came here I didn't see at first. I still had garbage in the eyes that someone had to help me take out. It flew terribly. And most importantly, I found out that there are completely different people here than in Prague. They seemed more rude and rough. Later he appreciated it rather as purity."
“I remember the barricades in every main street. We were members of SA units and they, unfortunately, began to terribly rage. They went to the cellars for the people who had been hiding from the air raids and the uprising, forcing them to open the barricades. The father of my friends from the Protestant church was shot dead. One classmate who went out on the street during the rebellion was also shot. Who peeped out was killed at once. It was very sad. It was here in Žižkov, around Pražačka, that was very exciting and bad because of SA members. One wondered what they were capable of. They were eighteen, nineteen years old. When we could go out on May 8, I saw a pile of dead that the Germans killed. The bodies were assembled in a corral at the Žižkov depot. It was terrible to me. And to this day it acts as a picture of mad brutality.”
“I must say that I did not excel at anything, but since childhood I have loved theater. It sounds incredible, but I was captivated by The Bartered Bride, which they played as a school performance. I liked so much that my mother got me a libretto somewhere and I wrote it down. I thought maybe we could play it as a school theater. Boys' school!”
Miloslav Nekvasil was born on 6 November 1930 in Prague. He grew up in Zizkov, where his father had a painting workshop. He lived at a school in Pražačka where German armed units were housed at the end of the war. In May 1945 he experienced dramatic fights on the days of the Prague Uprising. He graduated from grammar school and then singing at the conservatory. From 1955 to 1993 he worked in the Ostrava Opera. He began as a soloist of minor baritone roles. He was more attracted by directing than singing. In Ostrava he got the opportunity first as an assistant and since 1960 as an independent director. There he created sixty productions of the Czech and world opera repertoire. He has also guested on other stages, including the National Theater. He taught at the Conservatory and Prague Academy of Music. At the beginning of the 1990s he was opera director in Ostrava. In 1993 he moved to Prague.
Miloslav Nekvasil as assistant director with colleagues - Karel Průša (Mumlal, gamekeeper), Jan Hlavsa (Ladislav Podhajský), Milada Šafránková (Karolina), musical director Josef Kuchinka, Bronislava Taufrová (Anežka) and the director Ilja Hylas - National Moravian-Silesian Theatre, rehearsal of Two Widows (Dvě Vdovy), 1958
Miloslav Nekvasil as assistant director with colleagues - Karel Průša (Mumlal, gamekeeper), Jan Hlavsa (Ladislav Podhajský), Milada Šafránková (Karolina), musical director Josef Kuchinka, Bronislava Taufrová (Anežka) and the director Ilja Hylas - National Moravian-Silesian Theatre, rehearsal of Two Widows (Dvě Vdovy), 1958
