Kafka: The Trial

The ballet treats Franz Kafka’s feted novel, revealing the absurdity and cruelty of the bureaucratic apparatus the protagonist grapples with to no avail. Bigonzetti masterfully combines dance, music and imaginative scenery, created by Carlo Cerri. Owing to its black-and-white visual concept and video projections, the production evokes the film noir aesthetics, thus paying tribute to Orson Welles’s seminal cinematic adaptation.

Bigonzetti is well-known to Prague audiences, who have had the opportunity to see his abstract piece Vertigo (2016) and the feature-length narrative ballet Sheherazade (2025).

Kafka: The Trial unwinds to music by Antonio Maria Bononcini, Dietrich Buxtehude, Henryk Górecki, Claudio Monteverdi and other composers, adroitly underlying the hero’s overwhelming loneliness, anxiety and desperation.

The work was first performed in 2015 at the Staatstheater in Hanover. The Czech premiere took place in June 2019.

“Even though more than a century has passed since Kafka completed his novel, the production remains topical and continues to resonate with contemporary society in Europe and elsewhere alike,” adds Filip Barankiewicz, Artistic Director of the Czech National Ballet.

In the autumn of 2026, Bigonzetti’s Kafka: The Trial will return to the Estates Theatre. It will be accompanied by special ND+ events. The performances will be preceded by In Franz Kafka’s Footsteps guided tours of Prague, taking the participants to places connected with the celebrated writer’s life.

The hats for the Czech National Ballet production Kafka: Proces were donated by TONAK, a. s., the traditional hat maker for 220 years.

The Czech National Ballet soloists and corps de ballet