Tomáš Černý

At present, one of the most outstanding Czech tenors Tomas Cerny performs as a permanent guest soloist at both the National Theatre Opera in Prague and the Prague State Opera. He made a highly successful debut at Staatsoper Stuttgart in Jully 2008 as Laca Klemen from Janacek’s Jenufa under the baton of Marc Piollet and was immediately re-invited for the season 2009/2010 for Janacek’s Kata Kabanova.

Tomas Cerny was awarded the Czech prestigious Thalia 2000 prize for the interpretation of Prince Sou-Chong in Lehar’s Land of Smiles. Furthermore  he was awarded within the Festival Opera 2005 for the best interpretation of the title role – Edgardo from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and he was the Thalia 2005 nominee for the role of Laca from Janacek’s Jenufa.

After the Masterclass in 2006 with Prof. Margreet Honig he has been improving his voice performance intensively with her. Since 1997 he had studied with Prof. Jiri Kotouc and since 2002 with Prof. Svatava Subrtova.

On opera stages, he has created a number of important roles of the Czech as well as world tenor repertoire such as Alfredo (Verdi – La traviata), Duke of Mantua (Verdi – Rigoletto), Edgardo (Donizetti – Lucia di Lammermoor), Pinkerton (Puccini – Madama Butterfly), Don Ottavio (Mozart – Don Giovanni), Tamino (Mozart – Die Zauberflöte), Erik (Wagner – Der Fliegende Holländer), The Prince (Dvorak – Rusalka), Jenik (Smetana – The Bartered Bride), Laca (Janacek – Jenufa) and Manolios (The Greek Passion).

He takes successfully part in international festivals, e.g. Rheingau Musik Festival, ION – Musica Sacra in Nürnberg, Herrenchiemsee Festspiele, Murten Classics, Smetana’s Litomysl, The Prague Spring, The Prague Autumn, International Music Festival Cesky Krumlov, International Theatre Festival in Rumanian Sibiu, International Festival of Contemporary Music Warsaw Autumn and he also performed at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava, etc.

He has co-operated with orchestras such as Czech Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich (Dvorak’s The Spectre’s Bride), Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig (Verdi’s Requiem), Bremer Philharmoniker (Dvorak’s Stabat Mater), Orquesta Nacional de España (Martinu’s Gilgames), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (Dvorak’s Stabat Mater) and National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra etc.

Mr Cerny has worked with the conductors such as Petr Altrichter, Serge Baudo, Jiri Belohlavek, Gabriel Chmura, Oliver Dohnanyi, Olari Elts, Leopold Hager, Ken-iciro Kobayashi, Jiri Kout, Helmuth Rilling, Leos Svarovsky, Martin Turnovsky, Maximiano Valdés, Caspar Zehnder and others.

During his career, Tomas Cerny has performed in concerts all across the world; the places of his appearances stretch from Tokyo Oji Hall cross most of the European countries (e.g. Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Switzerland) to the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. His extensive concert and oratorio repertoire includes in addition to the common concert repertoire like from A. Dvorak, G. Verdi, A. Bruckner, H. Berlioz, L. Janacek, B. Martinu etc. also baroque and classicist top works by J. S. Bach, G. F. Händel, W. A. Mozart, L. van Beethoven and G. Rossini.

Future projects in 2008/2009 include his debut in the role of Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Bohème under the conductor Ondrej Lenard in the Prague State Opera, from concerts e.g. cooperation with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra Torino under Christoph Poppen, Kammerorchester Basel under Matthias Bamert or the Symphony Orchestra of the Hungarian Radio under György Győriványi-Ráth.