Management

PhDr. Ondřej Černý

PhDr. Ondřej Černý

General Director of the National Theatre

PhDr Ondřej Černý was born in Prague, on October 1, 1962. After studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague (course in Librarian Studies and Scientific Information), from where he graduated in 1986 (preceded by GCE, 1981; state examination in German language, 1981; extracurricular course in Theatre and Film Studies, 1982 – 83), he worked as a documentarist in the Documentation Dept of the Theatre Institute in Prague (1987 – 1990). In 1988 he passed the state rigorous examination for the PhDr degree. From 1990 – 1995 he was employed as an editor of the then newly founded journal, Svět a divadlo. From January 1 – March 2007 he was Director of the Theatre Institute in Prague. On April 1, 2007 he was appointed Director of the National Theatre in Prague.

He is a member of the Czech Commission for UNESCO; member of the Prague Quadriennial Board; and until 2010, was a member of the Artistic Advisory Board of the Academy of Drama in Prague.

He is simultaneously also active as a book editor and translator of dramas from the German language. He has collaborated as a dramaturge with the Prague German Language Theatre Festival, and is a corresponding member of the Saxon Academy of Arts. Since December 2009, he has been a member of the National Museum in Prague Executive Board.

As to March 5, 2011, he has been in charge as interim Acting Director of the State Opera.

Rocc

Rocc

Artistic director of opera

Rocc studied opera stage direction with Alena Vaňáková at the Janáček Academy of Music and Drama in Brno, a course which he followed up by postgraduate studies of stage design in Zurich, and with Rosalie in Offenbach am Main. He was granted a scholarship by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, as well as receiving support from the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Early on in his career, he mounted productions of Pergolesi’s La serva padrona (1999), and Alessandro Scarlatti’s L’amor generoso (2002), both at the Janáček Academy’s Chamber Opera, and Ernst Toch’s fairy-tale opera Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse. After subsequent successful productions, in Brno, in 2004, of Josef Berg’s chamber operas, Euphrides in front of the Tymen Gates and Breakfast at the Schlankenwald Castle, he was commissioned by the National Theatre in Prague to stage the world premiere of the opera MrTVÁ? by Markéta Dvořáková and Ivo Medek. In 2007, this production was presented at the 50th Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music.

During the 2005/2006 season, he lectured on stage movement at singing workshops in Freyung, Germany, where he also staged Albert Lortzing’s comic opera Die Opernprobe, and Franz Schubert’s singspiel Die Verschworenen/Der häusliche Krieg. In 2005, he mounted the world premiere of Vít Zouhar’s minimalist opera The Days of the Nights, at the National Theatre in Brno. In 2007, he staged the world premiere, at the National Theatre in Prague, of Tomáš Hanzlík’s opera Lacrimae Alexandri Magni.

Figuring among Rocc’s many other projects are installations, dance productions and new media works (in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany), as well as set designs for the Leipziger Tanztheater. Rocc is the initiator of “postopera forma,” a concept focused on post-dramatic music and stage aesthetics. His further projects have included e.g. productions of Michal Košut’s opera Macbeth for the Moravian Autumn Festival in Brno, in 2008, or Haydn’s Der Apotheker in Ljubljana, in 2009.

In the 2007/2008 season, he held the post of Dramaturge in the Opera of the Slovenian National Theatre in Maribor, and the 2008/2009 season saw him as deputy Artistic Director of the Janáček Opera of the National Theatre in Brno, where his achievements included, among others, a joint project with Vít Zouhar and Tomáš Hanzlík, La Dafne.

Since the 2011/2012 season, he has been Artistic Director of the opera ensemble of the State Opera, a position which will be combined as from January 1, 2012 with the post of Artistic Director of the National Theatre in Prague opera company. 

Hana Vláčilová

Hana Vláčilová

Artistic supervisor of ballet

A former soloist of the Czech National Theatre, Hana Vláčilová is one of the outstanding figures of the Czech ballet community. In the course of her successful career, during which she won several international awards, she performed in dozens of roles, mostly of the classical repertoire. She left a lasting impression in the minds of her audience as a brilliant ballerina with a gift of extraordinary musicality, natural acting talent and excellent technique. From 1968 to 1973 she studied at the Prague Dance Conservatory. Her Prague studies were followed in 1974 by a study stay at the Vaganova School in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) where she was taught by N. M. Dudinskaya, ending her stay with a graduation performance on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. In the same year she joined the National Theatre Ballet and two years later, in 1976, became one of its soloists. In the course of the following twenty-five years she appeared on stage e.g. as Cinderella, Giselle, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Clara in The Nutcracker, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Kitri in Don Quixote, Lisette in La Fille mal gardée, Frygia in Spartacus, Maria in The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, Sylphide in La Sylphide, Swanilde in Coppélia, Olympia in Hoffmann’s Stories and in many other roles. Vláčilová was a regular guest dancer of the Berlin Comic Opera and the Berlin State Opera; she performed in Spain, France, Austria, Poland, in the former USSR, Belgium, Finland, Luxembourg, Australia, the United States and Cuba. In 1972 and 1976 she won the 1st and 2nd prize at the Varna International Ballet Competition; she was also awarded 2nd prize at the Tokyo Ballet Competition in 1976, 1st prize at the Bratislava Ballet Competition, the 1978 German Critics Award and the 1995 Philip Morris Ballet Flower Award. Since 1994 a teacher at the City of Prague Dance Conservatory, from 1998 – 1999 she was simultaneously active as a teacher at the Prague National Theatre ballet, and from 1999 – 2004 was head of the Laterna magika theatre’s ballet ensemble. In 2009, she staged a production of A.C. Adam’s romantic ballet Giselle, at the National Theatre of Moravia-Silesia in Ostrava.

Her co-operation with the State Opera, as a teacher and ballet mistress, began in 2005. In 2007, she was both choreographer and stage director of the PSO’s production of the classic version of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, a successful title which has stayed on the repertoire to this day.