News

The Prague State Opera will launch its new season on Thursday August 20, 2009, traditionally with its Festival of Italian operas. This year’s seventeenth annual event will offer to the Prague State Opera goers the staging of the operas by Giuseppe Verdi (Nabucco, Rigoletto, Aida and La traviata) and Giacomo Puccini (Madame Butterfly and Tosca) performed by soloists and guests of the Prague State Opera.

Since 1993, the Prague State Opera has started its seasons with a cycle of Italian operas (originally called the Verdi Festival). This extraordinary event is an endorsement of the New German Theatre tradition when, 110 years ago in 1899, the then director Angelo Neumann organised the first so called Maifestpiele which were soon to become very popular. Almost year after year, Verdi opera cycles featured the greatest opera stars of the day. In 2005, the Prague State Opera decided to extend the festival to works of other famous Italian composers.

The celebrated Requiem by W. A. Mozart, with the Prague State Opera soloists, orchestra and chorus, is scheduled for Tuesday, June 23 at 7 pm to top off the 2008/2009 season.

The PSO artists will be joined by guests from Japan: the Haruka Women’s Chorus, which will add a variety of Japanese songs about the four seasons, entitled Furusato no Shiki, arranged by Shunichiro Genda. The soloists are Yukiko Kinjo Šrejmová, Kateřina Jalovcová, Josef Moravec, Pavel Švingr, the Prague State Opera orchestra and chorus. The conductor is Yu Miyadera, the principal conductor of the Saitama Chuo Philharmonic Orchestra and chief conductor of the Haruka Women’s Chorus.

Due to operational reasons, the Programme of State Opera Prague changes as follows: on Friday June 19, 2009, La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi will be given instead of the planned Tosca by Giacomo Puccini.

We thank all viewers for their understanding.

The only performance of Verdi’s Aida in a production which takes the Prague State Opera to its ninth Japanese tour this autumn (October 19 to November 15, 2009) is scheduled at the State Opera for Saturday, June 20 at 7 pm. The new show, a co-production with the Sferisterio Opera Festival in Macerata, Italy, is produced by director, set and costume designer Massimo Gasparòn. The Prague State Opera’s principal mezzo Galia Ibragimova will be Amneris, and Italian tenor Gianluca Zampieri will sing Radames. The Prague State Opera’s orchestra will play under conductor Giorgio Croci.

The tour, lasting almost a month, will take the State Opera to fifteen major cities, with four performances scheduled at the Bunka Kaikan, the famous Tokyo concert hall. The title role will be sung by house members, sopranos Anda-Louise Bogza and Jitka Svobodová, and guests Michele Crider and Dimitra Theodossiou. Other roles will be taken by Efe Kislali, Gianluca Zampieri and Mario Malagnini (Radames), Martin Bárta and Miguelangelo Cavalcanti (Amonasro), Galia Ibragimova, Daniela Diakova and Jolana Fogašová (Amneris), Oleg Korotkov (King/Ramfis), Lukáš Hynek-Krämer (King), Ladislav Mlejnek (Ramfis), Dagmar Vaňkátová (High Priestess) and Jiří Hruška (Messenger).

The last performance of the Swan Lake in this season is scheduled for Sunday, June 21, featuring our regular guests, Nikola Márová and Michal Štípa dancing Odette/Odile and Prince Siegfried. Nikola Márová, the National Theatre’s principal dancer, was awarded the prestigious Thalia Award 2007 for her guest performance in our production: “Since I was a child, Odette/Odile has been my dream role, and although I have danced the role in various productions, it was only at the Prague State Opera that I was scheduled for the premiere. I have different feelings in each performance in your theatre, but it always makes my day,” says the leading Czech dancer. And the State Opera’s audiences can admire Ms Márová and Mr Štípa in their superb renditions of Odette/Odile and the noble Prince in the following season, too.

Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello brings the season to a close at the Prague State Opera, as the first night on May 28, scheduled as part of the Prague Spring International Music Festival, attracted a number of personalities from political and cultural life.

The musically demanding work is conducted by renowned German conductor Heiko Mathias Förster, and Lubor Cukr led the team reconstructing a 1991 production by Dominik Neuner, with sets by Vladimír Nývlt and costumes by Josef Jelínek. Turkish tenor Efe Kişlali is Otello with a unique dark-timbred voice. The first-night audience especially loved the Prague State Opera member, soprano Christina Vasileva singing Desdemona, whose vocal performance and deep-felt acting received terrific applause as well as breathless silence as the opera approached its cathartic close. And Ivan Kusnjer received spontaneous ovation for his vocal and acting performance as Iago. The long final ovations went to the conductor, orchestra, chorus, and the entire production team.

(Clicking on the thumbnail will open photo in new window)

The renewed premiere of Otello by Giuseppe Verdi at the Prague State Opera on Thursday, May 28, 2009, is one of the events of the Prague Spring International Music Festival. The highly acclaimed 1991 production by director Dominik Neuner will now be reopened by a team under director Lubor Cukr. Featuring the 1991 set design by Vladimír Nývlt and costumes by Josef Jelínek, the production will star guest singers Efe Kislali and Sergej Ljadov (Otello), Ivan Kusnjer and Richard Haan (Iago); the three members of the Prague State Opera singing Desdemona are Anda-Louise Bogza, Christina Vasileva and Marina Vyskvorkina. One of the highlights of world opera, Otello will be conducted by Heiko Mathias Förster, a German conductor of world renown.

(Clicking on the thumbnail will open photo in new window)

The Phantom of the Opera, an original dance production of composer Petr Malásek and choreographer Libor Vaculík, has been a regular part of the Prague State Opera’s ballet repertoire since April last year. Each performance has met with warm reception from the audiences, the greatest acclaim going to Richard Hlinka and Zuzana Hvízdalová dancing as the demonic Phantom and gentle Christina respectively. On May 19, Yevgen Lisovyk, a new member of the ballet company, will be Raoul, the Phantom’s love rival. Following the solo dancing in the Time of Pain and von Rothbart in the Swan Lake, Raoul will be another great opportunity for Mr Lisovyk at the Prague State Opera.

The production of Britten’s opera Death in Venice, staged in the Prague State Opera within the framework of the Opera 2009 9th Festival of Music Theatre, was awarded two honorary festival prizes:

The Best Production Prize awarded by a jury of critics and the Prize for the Outstanding Role Rendition, awarded by a jury of honorary soloists of the National Theatre to Alan Oke for the role of Gustav von Aschenbach. Alan Oke was presented the prize after the last performance of Death in Venice on March 12, 2009; the Best Production Prize was conferred to Mgr. Jaroslav Vocelka, Intendant of the Prague State Opera, at the Opera 2009 gala concert in the Estates Theatre on March 17, 2009.

“Britten’s Death in Venice of the Prague State Opera was a clear artistic highlight of this year’s biennial event due to the perfectly synergetically welded unity of the staging approach and top performances, led by the riveting Alan Oke. It also drew the attention to the importance of co-productions with prestigious partners. For those who continue to challenge the utility of two opera houses in the capital, it hopefully served as a practical example of the purposefulness of the independent existence of both ensembles.”

Helena Havlíková, March 13, 2009, Lidové noviny

“Britten’s Death in Venice of the Prague State Opera is an international production that, due to its exclusive literary theme, unity of style, concentration, theatre poetry, atmosphere and comprehensive perfection of singing creations, made an amazing impression within the Czech context.”

Petr Veber, March 13, 2009 Hospodářské noviny

(Clicking on the thumbnail will open photo in new window)

The premiere of Britten’s Death in Venice, held on February 26, 2009, has met with unprecedented acclaim. The first night drew the attention of a number of prominent personalities of political and cultural life as well as reviewers from international opera monthlies and European dailies.

The first-night audience, visibly fully concentrated and overwhelmed by the unique aesthetic power radiating from the production, rewarded the orchestra, chorus, and the entire production team led by director Yoshi Oida with robust ovations. The star of the show, British tenor Alan Oke, was greeted with repeated bursts of applause, and huge ovations were awarded to baritone Peter Savidge and conductor Hilary Griffiths.

Critics praise the production of Death in Venice as a unique initiative and the season’s highlight (Hospodářské noviny, Právo). Five stars – the highest possible evaluation of the Lidové Noviny daily, were awarded to the production by the renowned reviewer Helena Havlíková:

“...Anyone who doubts whether there is any sense in having two opera companies in Prague should be made to go and see Death in Venice at the State Opera. In this project, the company follows the long series of productions that shaped our recent opera history. This is another proof that there is sense and justification in having two separate opera houses in a Central-European capital. In art, competition is always healthier than monopoly. The new director of the Prague State Opera, soon to be elected, will be responsible for maintaining and developing the independent position of this opera house by employing a wise selection of opera titles and ensuring first-rate productions.”

(Clicking on the thumbnail will open photo in new window)