Jan Hnyk

Biography

After graduating from the Prague Conservatory, Jan Hnyk took lessons from the world-renowned bass Matti Salminen in Zurich. In 2011, he won the Ad honorem Mozart International Music Competition in Prague. Since that year, he has been a regular guest to the J. K. Tyl Theatre in Plzeň, where he has performed the roles of Masetto (Mozart: Don Giovanni), Wagner (Gounod: Faust), Doctor Spinelloccio (Puccini: Gianni Schicchi) and Caspar (Weber: Der Freischutz, directed by Switzerland’s Dominik Neuner). In 2013, he was cast by the film director Jiří Menzel for the role of the singer Marek in his feature Donšajni. Jan Hnyk has also been a sought-after concert artist, appearing at music events at the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, the Bedřich Smetana Museum, etc. From 2010 to 2012, he was a member of the Opera piccola di Praga company, with whom he toured Switzerland with a production of Burkhard’s opera Spiegel, das Kätzchen, directed by Josef Novák and produced by Mathias Spohr, who subsequently engaged Hnyk for the role of Bartolo in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro in Winterthur. In 2016, he won the Junior category at the Antonín Dvořák International Vocal Competition in Karlovy Vary, where he was also awarded the Vilém Zítek and Milan Bürger Prizes, the Prague Voice Centre Prize and the Audience Jury Prize. In 2019, he made his debut at the National Theatre in Prague as Celio in the production of Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges.