Tomáš Ondřej Pilař
Guest of the OperaBiography
The Czech opera director and theatre designer Tomáš Ondřej Pilař will be working for the very first time with the National Theatre Opera in the 2023/24 season (on a new production of Nabucco). From 2014 to 2020, he helmed the J. K. Tyl Theatre Opera in Plzeň; since 2020 he has been director of the South Bohemia Theatre Opera in České Budějovice. He has staged more than 60 productions, including of Bizet‘s Carmen and Ponchielli’s La Gioconda at the Janáček Theatre in Brno; Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in Chieti, Italy; Verdi’s La traviata and Puccini’s Tosca in San Remo, Italy; Dvořák’s Rusalka in Yekaterinburg, Russia; Honegger’s Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher, Mascagni’s Iris, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Smetana’s The Bartered Bride and Gluck’s Alceste in Plzeň; Boito’s Mefistofele at the South Bohemia Theatre; and Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo at the Markgräfliches Opernhaus in Bayreuth. Moreover, he has given lectures in the Czech Republic and abroad, and has directed numerous open-air and site-specific performances. Forbes magazine included him in its 30 Under 30 list of the most inspiring Czechs under 30 years of age. Tomáš Ondřej Pilař has received the Bayreuther Festspiele scholarship, the Culture Prize of the City of Plzeň, and he won the costume competition at the Theatre World International Festival in Brno in 2014.