What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 17 September 2022.

Blodkova was built in 1905.

Vilém Blodek was born into a poor family in Prague in 1834.

He graduated from the Prague Conservatory at the age of 19, subsequently becoming a piano teacher in Lubycza Królewska (then Galicia, now in south-eastern Poland on the Ukrainian border).

He returned to Prague in 1855 and continued teaching, ultimately taking up a position as a flute teacher at the Academy.

He was also active as a composer, most famous for his opera V studni (In the Well), which was premiered in 1867.

The overture of the opera can be listened to here:

At the age of 35, Blodek suffered a psychological breakdown and was hospitalised at Kateřinky, an institution in Prague. He died there at the age of 39.