Michal Lehotský

Biography

The Slovak tenor Michal Lehotský is a regular guest of the National Theatre Opera. He made his debut at the State Opera Prague in 1999 as Robert in Meyerbeer's Robert le diable. In 2001, he first appeared at the National Theatre, performing the Duke of Mantua in Verdi's Rigoletto.

He took private voice lessons from Stano Mjartan. In 1996, he studied at the Mozart Academy in Krakow, and attended master classes in Piešťany and Bayreuth. His repertoire is dominated by Verdi roles, including Manrico (Il trovatore), Alfredo (La traviata) Gustav III (Un ballo in maschera), Radames (Aida), Otello and Macduff (Macbeth), and the Puccini roles of Rodolfo (La bohème), Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), Calaf (Turandot) and Cavaradossi (Tosca). He has also performed as Don José (Bizet: Carmen), Turiddu (Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana), Canio (Leoncavallo: Pagliacci), Peter Grimes (Britten), Jeník (Smetana: The Bartered Bride), Dalibor (Smetana), the Prince (Dvořák: Rusalka), Gennaro (Donizetti: Lucrezia Borgia), Herman (Tchaikovsky: The Queen of Spades), Števa (Janáček: Jenůfa), etc. He has portrayed major Romantic tenor roles at the State Opera and the National Theatre in Prague. Moreover, he has been a guest at the Wiener Staatsoper and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the National Opera House in Wexford, the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest and the National Theatre in Bucharest. He has given concerts with the Münchner Philharmoniker and the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln. He has sung in stage performances of Janáček's The Diary of One Who Disappeared in Rimini and Shostakovich's The Gamblers with the Liverpool Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko.

His discography includes two CDs of Dvořák's The Jacobin – with the Wexford Festival Opera Chorus and the National Philharmonic of Belarus (Fonè), and with the WDR Orchestra (Orfeo), with whom he has also recorded Dvořák's King and Charcoal Burner (Orfeo). His collaboration with the Liverpool Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has resulted in two albums, featuring Shostakovich's The Gamblers and Fleischmann's Rothschild’s Violin. He has won the Mikuláš Schneider-Trnavský and Emmy Destinn Vocal Competitions, and on two occasions reached the final of the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Competition in Vienna (1996, 1997). He was nominated for the Thalia Award 2008 for the portrayal of the role of Canio at the National Theatre in Brno.