Jiří Sulženko

Biography

The bass Jiří Sulženko is a soloist of the National Theatre in Prague, where he made his debut in 1991 as Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni.

He began his musical career as a double-bassist of the National Theatre Orchestra. He studied singing as his second discipline at the Prague Conservatory. After spells in Olomouc and Brno, he joined the National Theatre Opera in Prague, where he was a soloist from 1991 to 2000. Between 2008 and 2013, he was a soloist of the Staatstheater Saarbrücken, Germany, and since the 2012/13 season, he has been a soloist of the National Theatre Opera again.

His most prominent roles are Kecal (Smetana: The Bartered Bride), the Forester (Janáček: The Cunning Little Vixen), the Water Goblin (Dvořák: Rusalka), Zaccaria (Verdi: Nabucco), Filippo II (Verdi: Don Carlo), Boito’s Mefistofele, Gremin (Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin), Escamillo (Bizet: Carmen), Scarpia (Puccini: Tosca), Mozart’s Sarastro and Papageno (Die Zauberflöte), and Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro), Rossini’s Bartolo (Il barbiere di Siviglia) and Don Magnifico (La Cenerentola). He has portrayed a number of roles on foreign opera stages – the Mill Foreman in Janáček's Jenůfa at the Salzburger Festspiele, the Prison Governor in Janáček's From the House of the Dead at the Opéra Bastille in Paris, at the Teatro Real in Madrid and La Scala in Milan, Leporello in Gothenburg, Kecal in Monte Carlo, the Forester in Luxembourg and at the Athens Summer Festival, Ramfis (Verdi: Aida) in open-air performances in Vienna, Munich and Hanover. He sang the role of Lindorf/Coppélius/Dapertutto/Miracle in Offenbach’s Les contes d‘Hoffmann on a tour of Spain. He performed in Janáček's opera From the House of the Dead under the baton of P. Boulez at the Wiener Festwochen, the Holland Festival in Amsterdam and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. He has also appeared to acclaim at the Prague Spring, Smetana's Litomyšl, the Brucknerfest in Linz and other festivals, including in Ravenna, Edinburgh, Le Mans and Perth. He has collaborated with the Supraphon, Orfeo, Discover and Ultraphon record labels.