Lucie Hilscherová

Guest of the National Theatre Opera. She graduated in psychology and music education from the Faculty of Education of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, where she is now completing her studies of solo singing under the tutelage of Romana Feiferlíková. In 2000 she obtained a scholarship for the Faculty of Arts of the Technische Universität in Chemnitz, Germany, where she studied voice with Ursula Schönhals. She attended voice master classes given by Kristina Beck-Kukavcić, Zlatica Livorová, Roberto Bellotti, Jitka Kovaříková-Richter and Magdalena Hájossyová. In 2005 she became a finalist in the Antonín Dvořák International Voice Competition in Karlovy Vary and in the following year she won the Czech Radio Award and Josef Hercl Society Award at this contest. At State Opera Prague she performs as Verdi’s Annina (La traviata) and Giovanna (Rigoletto), and Rossini’s Berta (Il barbiere di Siviglia). In 2005 Katia Ricciarelli chose her for the role of Une dame in Poulenc’s opera Les mamelles de Tirésias (co-production of State Opera Prague and the Macerata Opera Festival). At the Theatre in Pilsen she has appeared as, for example, Marcellina (Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro), Emilia (Verdi: Otello), Badessa (Puccini: Suor Angelica) and the Reeve’s Wife (Janáček: Jenůfa). Her concert repertoire includes alto parts in a number of vocal-instrumental works. In 2007 at the Easter Festival of Spiritual Music in Brno and at Prague’s Rudolfinum she sang with the Prague Philharmonia (conductor Kaspar Zehnder) the alto solo in Dvořák’s oratorio Stabat Mater. Update: May 2008