Addressing the exhibition-opening ceremony, the HNK manager Dubravka Vrgoc recalled that 120 years ago, the HNK building had been erected in an area which had been regarded as the outskirts at the time.
The new building ushered in a new era in Croatian performing arts and culture, she added.
HNK Zagreb today can boast of 120 years, hundreds of actors, thousands of plays and performances, 40 general managers throughout its past, and that on 14 October 1895 modern theatre was introduced, Vrgoc said.
In 1881, the then Croatian parliament adopted a decision on erecting a new building for the national theatre. Construction began on 2 May 1894 and was completed in the autumn of 1895. The ceremonial curtain painted by Vlaho Bukovac, "The Reformation of Croatian Literature and Art", today known under the title "Croatian Reformation", was installed in the building at the end of the construction.
The new theatre was ceremoniously opened on October 14, 1895 by Emperor Franz Joseph I before numerous citizens of Zagreb and people from other Croatian regions. The first ceremonial performance in the new building was held in the presence of the emperor and numerous dignitaries at 7 pm – "The Glory of Art", an allegorical ‘stage prologue in three scenes’ by (Theatre Manager) Stjepan Miletic with music by Ivan Zajc in which the principals of drama and ballet participated and the eighth scene from the opera "Nikola Subic Zrinjski" by Ivan Zajc, the HNK recalls on its web site.