Jiří Sulženko

Bass Jiří Sulženko is one of the Czech Republic’s leading opera and concert singers.

A member of the Saarlandisches Staatstheater Saarbrücken opera company since 2008, Mr Sulženko makes regular guest appearances at the Prague State Opera and the Brno National Theatre. From 1990 and 2009, the bass was a permanent member, and later a regular guest, of the Prague National Theatre. His flagship roles include Leporello, Papageno, Figaro, Kecal (Smetana’s Bartered Bride), Gamekeeper (Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen), Procida, Zaccaria, Scarpia, Bartolo and others. He has made a number of international appearances in many roles, for instance as Leporello, Figaro, and Papageno on the Prague National Theatre’s tour of Japan, as Leporello in Göteborg under conductor Arnold Östman, as Kecal in Monte Carlo under conductor Zdeněk Mácal, as Gamekeeper in Luxembourg and at the Athens Summer Festival, as Ramphis in open-air productions of Aida in Vienna, Munich, Hannover, as Stárek – the Mill Foreman, in Janáček’s Jenufa in Salzburg, as Prison Governor in Janáček’s From the House of the Dead at Opera Bastille Paris and Teatro Real Madrid, in the quadruple role of Lindorf, Copelius, Dapertutto, Miracle in The Tales of Hoffmann on a tour of Spain. Further appearances in Janáček’s From the House of the Dead under Pierre Boulez took him to the Wiener Festwochen, Holland Festival in Amsterdam, and the Aix-en Provance Festival. Last season he made a debut at Teatro alla Scala Milano (From the House of the Dead).

In concert, Mr Sulženko has performed in a number of countries in Europe, in the USA, Japan, Brasil and Australia, working with local and international orchestras and conductors. The singer’s most significant appearances have included festivals such as the Prague Spring, Smetana’s Litomyšl, Brucknerfest in Linz, Ravenna Festival, Edinburgh, Le Mans, Perth with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, in the USA with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, in Japan with Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. The bass has worked with a number of world-renowned conductors, including Sir Charles Mackerras, Zoltán Pesco, Zdeněk Košler, Bohumil Gregor, Václav Neumann, Zdeněk Mácal, Ondrej Lenárd, Aldo Cecccato, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Leopold Hager, Jiří Bělohlávek, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and with record labels such as Supraphon, Orfeo, Discover, and Ultraphon.