Czech Philharmonic • Lukáš Vasilek

Audrey Bonnet is an acclaimed French actress who trained at the Cours Florent before joining the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art. She is involved in theater and film and is internationally known for De la guerre (2008), Augustine (2012) and Conann (2023), and to French audiences also from the stages of French theaters. From 2003 to 2006, she served as resident at the Comédie-Française; in 2013 she won the Best Actress award at the Palmarès du théâtre awards. However, she is also known to classical music lovers – she has already made a name for herself on many stages with her portrayal of Honneger’s Jeanne d’Arc. As David Chaloupka wrote about the production at the Opéra de Lyon (2017), “Jeanne d’Arc is embodied in an absolutely captivating way by Audrey Bonnet, an artist with numerous experiences in both classical and modern repertoire and a deep musical sensibility, which she applied, for example, in one of the leading roles of the hip hop opera Agamemnon. She portrays the title character with great expressive commitment and a physical performance bordering on physical self-destruction.” Helena Havlíková has assessed her performance from La Monnaie (2019) as “bordering on emotional dignity”.

Sébastien Dutrieux, the “sincere and cordial Dominique” and Audrey Bonnet’s theater partner in the above-mentioned Belgian production at La Monnaie, also frequently appears in Honneger’s oratorio. He has also played the role of Dominique in Utrecht, Frankfurt, Basel and Madrid. As a narrator, however, he is also frequently invited to other musical projects, such as Stravinsky’s Firebird, Lettres à Chopin, Grieg’s Peer Gynt and Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict, and has had the opportunity to work with conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Juanjo Mena and James Gaffigan. In addition to musical productions, he can also be seen in theater plays in Belgium. He has already performed in traditional pieces such as Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Pushkin’s Mozart and Salieri, as well as in modern repertoire. His other appearances include Le Moine Noir by Chekhov, which was presented in Belgium as well as in Canada and France.

The Prague audiences first heard the soprano Susanne Bernhard, born in Munich, in February 2023 at the performance of Britten’s War Requiem in the Rudolfinum, which was subsequently reprised in September in Vladislav Hall of Prague Castle. In June of the same year, Bernhard stood out as Tove in Schoenberg’s Songs from Gurre, performed at the State Opera as part of the Musica Non Grata Festival and at the Smetana Festival in Litomyšl under the direction of the conductor Petr Popelka.

While still a student of the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich, Bernhard collaborated with the Bayerische Theaterakademie, and immediately after graduation she was engaged by the Opernhaus Kiel. She is now a frequent guest of the Frankfurt Opera, the Dresden Semperoper and the Theater Bregenz. In addition to opera, she also focuses on Lieder, oratorio and concert repertoire, with which she has appeared at prestigious festivals such as the Rheingau-Musikfestival and the Beethovenfest in Bonn. She has worked with great conductors (Daniel Harding, Paavo Järvi and Semyon Bychkov) and has also made numerous radio and CD recordings, including Britten’s Folksongs and Josef Mysliveček’s opera Medonte.

A soloist of the opera of the National Moravian-Silesian Theater, the soprano Veronika Rovná (née Holbová) studied singing at the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava and at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ostrava under the guidance of Eva Dřízgová. She is a laureate of the Imrich Godin International Singing Competition Iuventus Canti, the Concorso internazionale Musica Sacra in Rome, and the Antonín Dvořák’s International Singing Competition in Karlovy Vary. Since 2009 she has performed at the National Moravian-Silesian Theater; since the 2019/2020 season as a full-time opera ensemble member. There she has appeared in a number of roles (including the leading ones) in the operatic repertoire spanning from Mozart and Smetana to Shostakovich and Krása. She was awarded the Jantar Prize for her portrayal of Míla Válková (Janáček’s Destiny) and Angelica (Puccini’s Suor Angelica). In addition, she has been a guest singer at National Theaters in Prague and Brno as well as at the Opéra de Lyon. She has appeared with the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra Ostrava, the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra Olomouc and Collegium 1704 and has performed at festivals such as the Smetana’s Litomyšl, Leoš Janáček International Music Festival and Les Musicales de Louvergny.

Anna Goryachova was born in St Petersburg and graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in her native city. She later studied with Renata Scotto, Anna Vandi and Cesare Scarton at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and with Romualdo Savastano at the A.R.T. Academy of Music. She is the winner of numerous prizes in international competitions, including Galina Vishnevskaya International Opera Singers Competition in Moscow. 

From 2008 to 2011 she was a soloist at the Mikhailovsky Theatre and the St Petersburg Opera, and then spent five years at the Zurich Opernhaus, where she performed roles in a diverse repertoire from the Baroque to the early 20th century. She has also been a guest at the Opéra national de Paris, Covent Garden in London, the Berlin and Vienna State Operas, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the Flemish Opera in Antwerp, the Norwegian Opera in Oslo and the New National Theatre in Tokyo. She is also frequently seen on concert stages with conductors such as Teodor Currentzis, Nello Santi, Fabio Luisi, Alain Altinoglu and Enrique Mazzola.

The American tenor Kyle van Schoonhoven also previously collaborated with the Prague Philharmonic Choir – together with Susanne Bernhard he took part in the performance of Britten’s War Requiem. However, the main focus of this winner of the prestigious Metropolitan Opera National Council Grand Finals is currently on Wagnerian roles. He has already sung Walther (Tannhäuser) at New York’s Metropolitan Opera; the title role of Lohengrin at San Francisco Opera, where he spent two years in the prestigious Adler Fellowship Program; as well as Froh (Das Rheingold) and Siegmund (Die Walküre), whom he also portrayed in a concert performance at Carnegie Hall. He has also recently appeared in his coveted role of Don José (Carmen). In April 2025, he will appear in the premiere of Der fliegende Holländer at the Fort Worth Opera in Texas.

Although he sang from a young age (singing was used as music therapy to help fix his stutter in childhood), it was not until high school that he was introduced to opera. His newfound love then spurred him on to study at the Fredonia School of Music, the Westminster Choir College and, through the Jensen Foundation Voice Competition and a host of other awards (George London Award, Nicolai Gedda Memorial Award), led him to the world’s most prestigious stage – the Met Opera.

After studying in Turkmenistan and at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, the German-Turkmenian tenor Dovlet Nurgeldiev began his international career at the Hamburg State Opera. His critically acclaimed debut there (the role of Fenton in Verdiʼs Falstaff) was followed by a series of other lyric tenor roles, from Mozart to Wagner to Verdi. He has since sung at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the Santa Fe Opera; he has already performed the concert repertoire with the Orchestre National de Lyon and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg. This season he sings the role of Grigory in Mussorgskyʼs Boris Godunov, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni and Ferrando in Così fan tutte at the Hamburg State Opera; he will also appear in gala concerts in Malmö with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra and in Arthur Honeggerʼs opera Le Roi David, which will be conducted by Lukáš Vasilek at the Smetanova Litomyšl in June 2025.

The American bass-baritone Zachary Altman, a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, is gaining notice for wide ranging repertoire in major theaters across Europe and the United States. Most recently he has been cast in productions of 20th-century operas. He has appeared, for example, in Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane (Reisopera Netherlands), Weill’s Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Komische Oper Berlin), Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Malmö Opera), Albert Herring (Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges (Opera Philadephia) and Strauss’s Daphne (Hamburg State Opera). He has performed Romantic and Mozartian roles as artist in residence at the Opera San José and as a member of the Theater Basel ensemble. During his stay in Basel, he also performed with the Basel Symphony Orchestra and the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, but his greatest popularity on the concert stage came from his participation in the famous Hollywood Bowl, where he performed Bernstein’s operetta Candide with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The French actor Jean-Baptiste le Vaillant is known mainly for having appeared in such films as L’accident (2016), The French Boys 2 (2021), and Les chaises musicales (2015), but he also gives theatrical and musical performances. He put his musicality to use, for example, on tour with the conductor Alain Altinoglu, under whose direction he played spoken roles in 2024 in Honegger’s Joan of Arc, appearing at the Philharmonie de Paris, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and elsewhere.

Thomas Gendronneau has several film appearances to his credit, including Bêtes blondes (2018), Ghosting (2023), and Lanceur d’Alerte (2016). He has also played theatrical roles in Paris and Avignon. Besides acting, he devotes himself intensively to dancing and music. 

The actress Anna John Schmidtmajerová is a Renaissance person. At the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts, she studied not only acting, but also acrobatics and singing, and she took cello and dance lessons privately. She is one of the founding members of the ensemble Cirk La Putyka, with which she has travelled all around the world, developing her skill in English and French. She has also performed at the National Theatre in Prague, the F. X. Šalda Theatre in Liberec, and the Na Jezerce Theatre. She can be seen regularly at the Dejvice Theatre, the Minor Theatre, the DAMÚZA Studio, and the Pod Palmovkou Theatre. She is also familiar to television and cinema audiences, and she has played in foreign productions for Netflix.

The Prague Philharmonic Choir (PPC), founded in 1935 by the choirmaster Jan Kühn, is the oldest professional mixed choir in the Czech Republic. Their current choirmaster and artistic director is Lukáš Vasilek, and the second choirmaster is Lukáš Kozubík.

The choir has earned the highest acclaim in the oratorio and cantata repertoire, performing with the world’s most famous orchestras. In this country, they collaborate regularly with the Czech Philharmonic and the Prague Philharmonia. They also perform opera as the choir-in-residence of the opera festival in Bregenz, Austria.

This season, they will appear at four choral concerts of their own, with programmes focusing mainly on difficult, lesser-known works of the choral repertoire. Again this year they will be devoting themselves to educational projects: for voice students, they are organising the Academy of Choral Singing, and for young children there is a cycle of educational concerts.

The choir has been honoured with the 2018 Classic Prague Award and the 2022 Antonín Dvořák Prize.

Today, the Prague Philharmonic Children’s Choir (founded in 1932) is one of the most important Czech artistic ensembles, renowned not just in Europe, but now on five continents. Over the years, the choir has trained thousands of talented children and taught them love for music and the arts. In terms of its traditions and the breadth of its artistic scope, it is a unique artistic institution of its kind not only in the Czech Republic, but also throughout Europe. The choir’s reputation of exceptional artistry is documented by numerous awards and official honours. It is regularly invited to major music festivals and concert tours, it collaborates with top orchestras and operatic stages, and it has realised more than 50 recordings of Czech and foreign music.

The Prague Philharmonic Children’s Choir has its own special sound that captivates listeners on first hearing because of the naturalness, purity, and refinement of the children’s voices. Since the choir’s founding, these characteristics have been an inspiration for many outstanding Czech composers to create works especially for the Prague Philharmonic Children’s Choir.

Jiří Chvála has been at the choir’s helm since 1967, and the choirmaster of the Concert Department is Petr Louženský.

Lukáš Vasilek studied conducting (at the Academy of Performing Arts, Prague) and musicology (at Charles University, Prague). His first experience with choral singing was as a member of the Boni Pueri boys’ choir in Hradec Králové. Later on, he linked up to the practice in Prague, first in the role of the conductor of the Foerster Female Chamber Choir and subsequently as the second choirmaster of the National Theatre Chorus, Prague.

Since 2007, Lukáš Vasilek has been the principal conductor of the Prague Philharmonic Choir, with his work entailing exploration and performance of the a cappella repertoire, as well as the ensemble’s preparation for signing in great cantata, oratorio and opera projects, implemented in collaboration with major orchestras and conductors. As a conductor or choirmaster, he has participated in numerous recordings the Prague Philharmonic Choir has made for prestigious labels, including Decca and Supraphon.

Lukáš Vasilek has guided the Prague Philharmonic Choir in the majority of their activities in the Czech Republic and abroad, cooperating with world-renowned conductors (over the past few years, they have included Jiří Bělohlávek, Semyon Bychkov, Manfred Honeck, Jakub Hrůša, Philippe Jordan, Fabio Luisi, Tomáš Netopil, Gianandrea Noseda and Simon Rattle) and orchestras (for instance, the Berlin Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony). Under Lukáš Vasilek, since 2010 the choir has been the ensemble in residence of the Bregenz Festival.

Besides leading the Prague Philharmonic Choir, Lukáš Vasilek has pursued other artistic activities. In addition to occasional returns to his original discipline, orchestral conducting, he has regularly worked with Martinů Voices, a vocal ensemble he himself founded in 2010, primarily focusing on chamber choral music dating from the 19th to 21st centuries, yet also devoting to earlier music.

Under Vasilek, Martinů Voices have mainly given independent concerts, yet they have also performed along with other ensembles, including the Tallis Scholars (2016) and the Bang on a Can All-Stars (2017). Moreover, they have made acclaimed albums, among them unique CDs of Bohuslav Martinů’s and Jan Novák’s chamber choral works (Supraphon).

In recent years, Lukáš Vasilek has systematically devoted to recording Bohuslav Martinů’s choral music. His albums featuring the composer’s cantatas (made with the Prague Philharmonic Choir) and madrigals (with Martinů Voices), released on Supraphon in 2016 and 2018 respectively, met with great international critical response and received prestigious accolades from Gramophone (Editor’s Choice for both discs), the BBC Music Magazine (Choral & Song Choice for the cantatas) and Diapason (Diapason d’Or for madrigals). The recording of Martinů’s chamber cantatas was also nominated for the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2018.