"Not to see our Don Giovanni – not to be in Prague!" proclaim the posters, and certainly a puppet performance of Mozart’s opera lived up to the leaflets. Discreet in a bustling shopping street, it’s easy to miss the National Marionette Theatre. Don’t.

From the moment we bought our tickets at the booth (around 400 czk, cheaper for children and students) the magic began. The theatre is minuscule, with a maximum of one hundred in every audience. The show begins with paper puppets playing an overture and with curtain up their string counterparts swing onto the stage. I won’t say any more or I’d spoil a fantastic show.

The patrons of the puppet theatre included a great deal of children but I think an older audience would appreciate it more. In Italian, the storyline was sometimes difficult to establish but the music and costumes made up for the confusion. There were two performances every day, each lasting around 1 hour 15 minutes.

Expensive by Prague standards, the National Marionette Theatre is a must see stop-off on any trip away to Prague.

It took some convincing to get Cia to agree to see Don Giovanni, performed entirely by marionettes, in the world’s oldest marionette theater. Not only did the theater have that impressive statistic on its side, but marionettes are also a traditional art in the Czech Republic. Mozart composed Don Giovanni in Prague. And where else in the world could you see such a thing?

We stopped by the National Marionette Theater, at Zatecka 1 in Stare Mesto, on the way to Old Town Square in the morning. The woman working the ticket counter spoke in slow, lilting English, extolling the place of Don Giovanni in Czech history and explaining when we should get tickets, how long the show would last, and assuring us that the student discount was all right since we looked so young (I suppose looking like you’re 15 is an advantage sometimes). We thanked her, picked up a few brochures, and went about our day.

About 45 minutes before showtime, we returned to buy tickets—around $20 apiece—and climbed the stairs to the theater. The theater itself was quaint, seating 100 people maximum under a peaked wooden ceiling, along benches with long red cushions and no seat dividers. A single person sat at the back and operated the lights; just before curtain, he walked along the walls and closed the few tiny open windows.

The show began with an orchestra of paper dolls, the conductor moving his little arm up and down and the violinists sawing away at the opening number. Cute, but after a full 5 minutes, the limited range of motion had lost its novelty. Then, the stage lit up, and the first aria began, sung by a lavishly dressed marionette performed (what’s the word for puppeteering marionettes?) with a range of histrionic movements, on a stage decked out in an impressive 18th-century set. A range of characters was introduced, and scenes were full of classic puppet shenanigans—lots of slapping, hitting, and fatal falls. It was hilarious and weird, in the best possible way; I’m sure I’ll never see anything like it again.

One tip: sit closer to the stage. We sat at the back and were treated to the tops of all the puppeteers’ heads—and hands—throughout the entire show. Funny, but it took away from the atmosphere a bit. And make a run for the restroom before the show ends, with its light-and-smoke-filled spectacle of a finale. They close the restrooms right after the show ends.

In all, this is a not-to-be-missed experience in Prague. It’s a whimsical, totally unique look into Czech culture that provides a nice foil for all the history and architecture you’ll be treated to during your time there. Rumor has it the theater sometimes performs a show called Yellow Submarine, set entirely to Beatles music. Go to Don Giovanni anyway, for the pure absurdity and perhaps the most unusual Czech experience out there.