Jan Chalupecký

Biography

Conductor Jan Chalupecký joined the National Theatre in the 1993/1994 season as assistant to conductor Zdeněk Košler, with whom he conducted Dvořák‘s Jacobin.

After graduating in cello from the Prague Conservatory, he began his professional career as a member of the orchestra and then as conductor of the Prague Chamber Opera in 1990-93. Since 1994, he has conducted many operas at the National Theatre and the State Opera, including Mozart's Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro and Così fan tutte, Smetana‘s The Bartered Bride, Libuše, Dalibor and The Two Widows, Janáček‘s Jenůfa, Dvořák‘s The Devil and Kate, Donizetti‘s L’elisir d‘amore, Verdi‘s Rigoletto, La traviata and Simon Boccanegra, Rossini‘s Il barbiere di Siviglia and Britten‘s Gloriana. As conductor he prepared new productions of Mozart‘s Die Zauberflöte, Verdi‘s Macbeth, Jan Bedřich Kittl‘s Bianca und Giuseppe and the world premieres of Martin Smolka‘s Nagano and Miloš Orson Štědroň‘s Don Hrabal.

He has repeatedly performed with the National Theatre Opera ensemble at the Prague Spring Festival and on many domestic and international tours, including Japan, Hong Kong, Slovakia and Hungary. He has also collaborated with Opera Mozart and the Municipal Theatre in Ústí nad Labem. In 1997-99, he was the chief conductor of the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra and he cooperated with the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra Olomouc, the Brno Philharmonic, the Prague Philharmonia and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, with whom he made numerous recordings of film music, gave concerts at home and toured abroad (Switzerland, Germany).