Rocc

Biography

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, La Belle et la Bête by Philip Glass for the National Theatre in Brno, in 2008, or Haydn’s Der Apotheker in Ljubljana, in 2009.
In 2010 he prepared productions of Rossini’s Cinderella at the National Theater in Brno, Janáček’s Šárka and Martinů’s Ariadne at the National Moravian-Silesian Theater in Ostrava and the world premiere of the opera Shepherd by Peter Šavli’s at the Opera of the National Theater in Ljubljana. A year later he prepared the world premiere of the opera La Dafne by Tomáš Hanzlík and Vít Zouhar at the National Theater in Brno and Richard Strauss’s Elektraat the same scene (2012). In Bergen, Norway, in 2011, he set up an open-air production of the operas Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni and Fairies by Giacomo Puccini, and in 2012 The Poor Knight by Sergey Rakhmaninov and Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini.
His latest productions are Debussy's Pelleas and Melisande at the National Theatre, The Little Sweep (B. Britten, Latvian National Opera Riga - January 2013) and Lohengrin (R. Wagner, NDM Ostrava - March 2013).
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. In 2009–11 he has been Artistic Director of the Janáček Opera of the National Theatre in Brno. In 2011–2013 he was Artistic Director of the Prague State Opera, which is from 2012 affiliated with the National Theatre Opera in Prague. 
His artistic name is a tribute to Marie Mrázková, Rocc’s professor of dramatic art, and true mentor!
www.rocc.cc

Update: April 2013