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Zoltán Vongrey in Puccini’s Tosca September 2

Added: September 1, 2010

Slovak baritone Zoltán Vongrey will create the role of Scarpia on September 2, 2010. His repertoire is centered around Italian opera roles. In the 2010/2011 season, he will create the role of Francesco Foscari in the Slovak National Theatre’s new production of Verdi’s opera I due Foscari, conducted by Friedrich Haider.

Zoltán Vongrey in Puccini’s Tosca September 2

Zoltán Vongrey in Puccini’s Tosca September 2
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Ballet Enters New Season on September 5 with Swan Lake

Added: August 24, 2010

The Prague State Opera ballet is opening the new season on Sunday, September 5, with two performances, at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., of its production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Pavel Ďumbala’s and Hana Vláčilová’s classically inspired choreography draws consistently on the original concept of Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa. In the afternoon showing, the double-role of Odette/Odile will be danced by Zuzana Hvízdalová, and the ensemble’s new soloist, Michal Krčmář, will create the part of the Prince. The evening performance will feature for the first time as Odette/Odile Prague State Opera soloist Rebecca King, known to regular visitors as Cinderella from Sergei Prokofiev’s eponymous ballet, or as Anastasia from Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty. Dancing opposite her as the Prince will be another new asset to the company’s forces, Filip Veverka, a dancer with a wealth of experience from European and overseas ballet stages.

Prague State Opera Awards Honorary Membership to Kammersängerin Soňa Červená

Added: August 24, 2010

On the occasion of her major anniversary, Ms Soňa Červená will receive from the Prague State Opera an honorary membership which will be handed over to her on Saturday, September 4, 2010, before the performance of Bizet’s Carmen, by the PSO’s General Director, MgA Oliver Dohnányi.

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Prague State Opera Awards Honorary Membership to Kammersängerin Soňa Červená Prague State Opera Awards Honorary Membership to Kammersängerin Soňa Červená Prague State Opera Awards Honorary Membership to Kammersängerin Soňa Červená Prague State Opera Awards Honorary Membership to Kammersängerin Soňa Červená

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Would you like to be informed regularly about what is going on around the Prague State Opera? We shall be happy to send to you a newsletter on each 20th day in the month containing the programme for the next month together with a summary of the most important news.


Performances coming soon

G. Verdi: La traviata
Tomorrow at 19:00

Verdi’s La traviata has figured on the repertoire of this opera house ever since its foundation, when the new company co-opted the production of Prague’s German Estates Theatre. It then served chiefly as a vehicle for guest-appearances by illustrious international singers, including among others the legendary Australian soprano, Nellie Melby (April 18, 1900). The first authentic new staging was mounted by the New German Theatre (today’s Prague State Opera) on November 9, 1919, under the baton of Georg Széll, followed by a string of further productions, in 1930, 1934, 1945, 1959, 1979, and most recently, on October 7, 1982, which was directed by Ladislav Štros, with sets designed by Vladimír Nývlt and costumes by Josef Jelínek. That production has since ranked alongside the Prague State Opera’s most successful titles, by the end of the 2005/2006 season reaching a total of 487 performances. The new staging will be taken care of by an international creative team headed by the French director, Arnaud Bernard, whose projects in recent years have included productions of, among others, the operas, Roméo et Juliette at Chicago, with Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu (1999); L’elisir d’amore at the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, with Marcelo Alvarez (2001); Lakmé at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo; and Roméo et Juliette in Tokyo (2003); Luisa Miller at the Nationale Reise Opera in the Netherlands; Roméo et Juliette in Beijing; and Le Roi de Lahore in Venice (2004); and most recently, during the current season, La Bohème at the Arena of Verona. The production’s music direction was commissioned to the Italian conductor, Enrico Dovico, a permanent guest conductor of the Prague State Opera.

In La traviata, to the libretto from the novel by Alexandre Dumas the Younger, La Dame aux camélias, telling the story of Marie Duplessis, a noted courtesan and idol of the 1840s’ Parisian society, Verdi in fact created history’s first major opera dealing with a contemporary social theme. This was only one of the work’s several aspects that proved unpalatable for the audience at its premiere in Venice, in 1853: beyond that, they were similarly shocked by the principal part there being assigned to a courtesan, and that moreover she was portrayed as a heroine. Consequently, the premiere ended by a fiasco. Soon thereafter, nonetheless, Verdi’s La traviata scored its first triumphs, and ever since then has remained a hugely loved repertoire staple.

What you shouldn't miss
The Prague State Opera - Theatre History in Pictures and Dates - Book cover
The Prague State Opera – Theatre History in Pictures and Dates
Tomáš Vrbka
The Prague State Opera in cooperation with the Slovart publishing house publishes a representative book tracking the history of this significant cultural institution since its opening in 1888 till the end of the 2002/2003 season. The publication called The Prague State Opera – Theatre History in Pictures and Dates is focusing solely on the opera featured at the scene, even though the theatre under various names also served to presentation of drama plays, operettas and ballet. The Prague State opera plans to publish the volumes concentrating on those genres in the next years.

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