Jiří Rožeň
Jiří Rožeň makes his debut at the National Theatre Opera in the 2021/22 season. He studied conducting at conservatoires and universities of Prague, Salzburg, Hamburg, Zürich and Glasgow. He has seen success in Salzburg and London as the Finalist of both the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductor’s Award and the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition. Formerly Assistant Conductor at the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Rožeň was working alongside Donald Runnicles and Thomas Dausgaard and assisted them at the BBC Proms and the Edinburgh International Festival. His international standing grows with debuts with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse. He also conducts all the major orchestras in Belgium, and appears elsewhere with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony, Poznan Philharmonic, Staatsorchester Kassel, the Romanian Radio National Orchestra and the PKF – Prague Philharmonia. As a passionate and knowledgeable advocate of Czech music, he regularly presents music by Martinů, Suk, Janáček, Kalabis and Kabeláč, he has conducted one of Kabeláč’s signature works, Symphony No. 4 on various occasions including Austrian premiere with Camerata Salzburg at Salzburg Festival. Alongside his symphonic work, Rožeň is steadily building his opera repertoire. During his time in Scotland, he has been engaged in conducting Stravinsky’s Mavra, Walton’s The Bear, Strauss’s Die Fledermaus and Britten’s Owen Wingrave. He has also conducted Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilegès with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra as well as Sven Daigger’s Eine Kluge Else at the Brücken-Festival für Neue Musik in Rostock.
Denys Pivnitskyi
Born in Kharkiv in Ukraine in 1990, Denys Pivnitskyi makes his Prague National Theatre Opera debut in 2021/22 season in Erwin Schulhoff´s Plameny at the State Opera. He graduated from the Gnessin State Musical College in Moscow in 2011 and from the Claudio Abbado Musical Academy in Milan in 2016. He has performed Alfredo in La traviata in Genova and Reggio Calabria, Turridu in Cavalleria rusticana at the Verdi Opera Theatre in Pisa, Osaka in Iris at Teatro del Giglio in Lucca, at the Goldoni Theatre in Livorno and Giuseppe Verdi Theatre in Pisa, Manrico in Il trovatore at the Verdi Opera Theatre in Busseto and at the Albanian Opera in Ballet Theatre in Tirana, Radames in Aida in Parma and at Tiroler Festspiele in Erl, Cavaradossi in Tosca in Pesaro, in Rovereto and at the Mikhailovski Theatre in St. Petersburg, Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana and Canio in I pagliacci in Avignon, Opéra de Vichy and Opéra de Massy, and Roberto in Le villy in Cagliari, among others. Since 2011, he has lived in Milan.
Victoria Khoroshunova
Ukrainian soprano Victoria Khoroshunova makes her Prague National Theatre Opera debut in 2021/22 season in Erwin Schulhoff’s Plameny at the State Opera. She first studied singing at the National Academy of Music in her hometown of Odessa, then moved to Greece, where she continued her studies at the Athens Conservatoire of Music. In 2015, she was accepted to the Santa Cecilia Opera Studio in Rome, where she studied with Renata Scotto and Cesare Scarton, among others. She also worked with Susan Bullock on master classes in Nafplio, Greece. As one of the best participants in these classes, she was chosen for two recitals in London and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. She has performed at the Parco Della Musica Auditorium in Rome, at the Aegean Music Festival (Nedda, I pagliacci), at the Teatro Accademia di Milano (Nedda), at the Albanian National Opera (Amelie, Un ballo in maschera) and at the Greek National Opera Opera Studio in Athens (Fiordiligi, Così fan tutte). She is the recipient of the Maria Callas Award for Young Artists awarded by Greek UNESCO and the honorary Grand Prix Maria Callas Competition.
