Singer

Dvořák – Stabat Mater

Municipal House

Our principal conductor once praised the "natural quality" of our orchestra, saying that we "never play routinely" and therefore it "never sounds boring." He particularly appreciates our great enthusiasm for discovering the often still unknown music of his homeland, and so we will once again delve with him into the Czech repertoire, which has become irresistible to us – with exciting works such as the "Suita rustica" by Vítězslava Kaprálová, who was not only a highly gifted composer but also the first female conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. She came from Brno but died in exile in France at the young age of 25.

Guest at the Vienna Musikverein

Vienna Music Society

In an interview, our principal conductor remarked approvingly that our orchestra's "special ability" is to "truly give its all in every concert"—and under his direction, we achieve this particularly well because we have long since achieved perfect synergy. We are delighted to immerse ourselves once again in a highly romantic work by his beloved composer Dvořák, who was once called the "prophet of Czech art." It was also said of his invigorating musical language and colorful inventiveness that one could argue about them as little as about the arrival of spring. This concert focuses on one of his vocal works, which Jakub Hrůša calls a "wonderful gift"—and whose "sensual melodic charm" was already praised by his contemporaries: The Stabat Mater, the setting of the medieval poem of the same name about Mary's grief at the sight of Jesus on the cross, is an exceptionally vivid and emotional piece.

Jakub Hrůša: Dvořák's Stabat mater

Bamberger Symphoniker

For Elina Makropoulos, this dream becomes reality in an involuntary and paradoxical experience. Long ago, her alchemist father tested an elixir of life on her. Since then, she has traveled throughout Europe, constantly changing her identity and her lover. Now 337 years old, an opera singer known as Emilia Marty, she finds herself embroiled in an inheritance dispute. While her beauty and undiminished voice still captivate, her sole objective is to rediscover the formula for the elixir, whose effects are threatening to fade. But is eternal life truly an enviable destiny?

The Makropoulos Affair

Lille Opera

Mozart’s illustrious operatic oeuvre is rounded off by a work providing both copious entertainment and food for thought, affording a fantastic spectacle and presenting a magical ritual of initiation of the human spirit. All that is encompassed in Die Zauberflöte, and all that can be found in Vladimír Morávek’s colourful production, featuring a thrilling atmosphere and teeming with mysterious symbols. There is something for everyone – adults and children, including, if fear hasn’t consumed them, the very youngest.

Die Zauberflöte

The Estates Theatre

Smetana and the librettist Karel Sabina masterfully mocked all those who expected the “national opera” to be an idyllic picture of the Czech countryside, with its inhabitants being virtuous and governed by high morals. The Bartered Bride is thus far more humorous than “national”. Nonetheless, its humour is precisely of the type Czechs so love, and hence Smetana’s opera, abounding in irony, scathing, occasionally even cynical, wit, as well as tenderness and simple joie de vivre, has ultimately become “national” in the best sense of the word ...

The Bartered Bride

National Theatre

The opera Nabucco, depicting the dramatic story of the subjugation of the Israelites by the King of Babylon, ranks among Guiseppe Verdi’s most celebrated works. Phenomenal chorus scenes, extremely impassioned virtuoso arias, as well as the perennially topical themes of expansive war, lust for power, betrayal, life and death, are the reasons why it has always been a staple of opera houses’ repertoire.

Nabucco

State Opera

Verdi said that for his new opera he was looking for a subject depicting "people of special characters as bearers of courageous and varied deeds." He found it in García Gutiérrez's successful drama set in 15th-century Spain. Verdi set this chivalric drama full of twists and turns and compelling denouements to music with typical romantic emotion, and it definitely does not lack magnificent melodies.

The Troubadour

Theater of JK Tyl New Stage

The Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich set Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk to a libretto he wrote together with Alexander Preis after the eponymous novella by Nikolai Leskov. He himself referred to the opera as a satirical tragedy. The main character, Katerina, is a murderess haunted by qualms of conscience. Yet, with a touch of bitter humour, Shostakovich also focuses on the moral decay of the inhabitants of a Russian village, revealing the omnipresent torpidity and recklessness. Life without hope and love is the very reason for the heroine’s downfall.

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème ranks among the most frequently staged operas worldwide. The composer was inspired by the Paris-based painter and writer Henry Murger’s popular book Scènes de la vie de bohème, published in 1851, immediately sensing its enormous dramatic potential. He duly asked the librettists and playwrights Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, with whom he had successfully collaborated previously, to pen a text for a new opera. Their fruitful partnership is among the most cherished in the history of opera, comparable to that of W. A. Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, or Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal.

La bohème

With its subject, taken over from the German collection of ghost stories Gespensterbuch (Book of Spectres), and its dramatic music, Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz  (The Marksman) is a quintessentially Romantic piece, deemed one of the first, and most renowned, Romantic operas.

Der Freischütz (The Marksman)

The German composer Richard Strauss based Salome, one of his most celebrated operas, on Oscar Wilde’s eponymous tragedy. The first to portray the title role in the play was the famed French actress Sarah Bernhardt (her company gave four performances at the National Theatre in Prague), whose art also contributed to the popularity of other dramas  (Tosca and Madame Sans-Gêne), subsequently adapted as operas.

Bass

Jan Hnyk

Events

Upcoming events

Aug 26, 2026 - Feb 14, 2027

Die Zauberflöte · Národní divadlo

Aug 27, 2026 - Jun 27, 2027

The Bartered Bride · Národní divadlo

Aug 30 - Dec 15, 2026

Nabucco · Národní divadlo

Sep 26, 2026

The Troubadour · J.K. Tyl Theatre

4 - 23 Oct, 2026

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk · Národní divadlo

Past events

Mar 31 - Apr 1, 2026

Dvořák – Stabat Mater · Prague Symphony Orchestra

25 - 26 Mar, 2026

Guest at the Vienna Musikverein · Bamberger Symphoniker

Future and recently performed repertoire

Kecal in The Bartered Bride by Smetana

Národní divadlo

Police sergeant in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Shostakovich

Národní divadlo

First Soldier in Salome by Strauss

Národní divadlo

Colline in La bohème by Puccini

Národní divadlo

Singer in Stabat Mater by Dvořák

Prague Symphony Orchestra

Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte by Mozart

Národní divadlo

Hermit in Der Freischütz by Weber

Národní divadlo

High Priest of Baal in Nabucco by Verdi

Národní divadlo

Dr. Kolenatý in The Makropulos Affair by Janáček

Opéra de Lille

Ferrando in The Troubadour by Verdi

J.K. Tyl Theatre

About

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