2000 – 83rd Segment: “Bridge over the Past”

In this series we present 100 songs which have gone down in the history of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. On Czech Radio’s web pages you can find a poll, in which you can vote for the best hit from the past century. We continue with the year 2000.

On January 1st, fourteen new self-governing regions began to operate.

In 2000, Prague was chosen as a European Capital of Culture.

On November 21st, Emil Zátopek passed away.

Wonderful Czech versions of two American rock ‘n’ roll musicals, Grease and Joan of Arc, premiered in the Czech Republic in 2010. The original Czech version of the Joan of Arc musical was written for the Ta Fantastika Theater. This was the first time that Gabriela Osvaldová, an actress and author of many popular song lyrics, took on such an extensive writing project. The author of the libretto was Jiří Hubač.

Photo: EMI

Initially, the song “Bridge over the Past” was not supposed to be in the musical at all. The musical was almost finished but the great Slovak theater director Bednárik felt that there was something missing. He urged the authors to write another song – a radio hit.

It was thanks to him that the hit of the year was created. More precisely, it was a song that went down in history and won a poll – the results of which were announced at that time. The song was written by Ondřej Soukup.

Vote for the best song of the century!