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The men digging the foundations in 1781 found a container of silver coins and took it for a good sign.
The house went up in two years on Nostic-Rieneck's own land, next to Charles University: a university and a theatre were understood as one thing. It opened in 1783, and PATRIAE ET MUSIS, to the native land and the muses, stands above the portal. The National Theatre, which has run the building since 1920, says the playing has not stopped.
Mozart conducted the world premiere of Don Giovanni in this auditorium in 1787. It is the only theatre he worked in that still stands, and Don Giovanni is still played here. The hall is mostly wood, dome included, and the last reconstruction found papier-mache behind the balcony parapets. Nothing was to be replaced, to keep the acoustics.
Miloš Forman shot the Don Giovanni premiere of Amadeus in that auditorium, staging a first night in the room where the first night happened; on screen it is Vienna. Czech Wikipedia, which gives no source for it, adds that he finished just before the painters: white, gold and red then, white, gold and blue after.
Anna Chromy's Il Commendatore, a bronze cloak with nobody inside it, named for a character in Don Giovanni, stood by the entrance from 2000 until Prague 1 carried it off in November 2025 at the theatre's own request. It is in a depository, waiting for a new place.