"... přesto bych se nikdy nerozhodl pro libreto, které by mne přímo nerozpálilo." : spletitá cesta Pavla Haase k libretu Šarlatána

Pavel Haas' only opera Šarlatán (The Charlatan), composed in 1934-1937, is the composer's most extensive work and in many ways the culmination of his interwar output. The creation of The Charlatan was preceded by a series of plans and unfinished opera attempts, but these mostly failed in negotiations with the authors of the subjects. These included Stanislav Lom's play Kající Venuše (Penitent Venus), Karel Čapek's Loupežník (The Robber) and Salomon Anski's Dybbuk. In 1932 Haas also negotiated about a libretto for an opera with the poet Vítězslav Nezval. Sometime around this time, probably during the summer months of 1933, Pavel Haas got his hands on a novel by the German writer Josef Winckler, Doctor Eisenbart, which he decided to adapt as an opera. The newly discovered correspondence of Pavel Haas from 1933–1934, addressed to Josef Winckler, helps to reveal the reasons that complicated the negotiations between the artists. Due to the political situation in Hitler's Germany, the negotiations did not reach a final agreement, so Pavel Haas, who himself had adapted the libretto from the novel, had to conceal the name of the author of the novel's subject during the premiere production in Brno in April 1938.