Kateřina Kněžíková

Biography

Kateřina Kněžíková made her National Theatre debut in 2005 as Zerlina in Mozart‘s Don Giovanni. Since 2006 she has been a permanent member of the National Theatre Opera.
She studied at the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. In recent years, she has primarily performed at the National Theatre Mozart roles, including Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Serpetta (La finta giardiniera), Blonde (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Ilia (Idomeneo), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) and Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte). She has also portrayed Almirena (Handel: Rinaldo), Adina (Donizetti: L’elisir d‘amore), Barče (Smetana: The Kiss), Terinka (Dvořák: The Jacobin), Nannetta (Verdi: Falstaff), Aristea (Mysliveček: L‘olympiade) and Micaela (Bizet: Carmen). At the State Opera, she has appeared as Rosina in Rossini‘s Il barbiere di Siviglia, Gilda in Verdi‘s Rigoletto, Gounod’s Juliette and Dvořák‘s Rusalka.
Kateřina Kněžíková has been invited to perform at all major Czech opera houses. She has been a regular guest of the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava (the title role in Martinů‘s Juliette, Gounod‘s Juliette, Dvořák‘s Rusalka), and also appeared at the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava (Donna Elvira, Gilda). Moreover, she has performed in Handel‘s Rinaldo in Caen, Rennes and L'Opéra Royal de Versailles, and in a production of Mysliveček's L’Olimpiade at the Opéra de Dijon. In 2011, she made her debut at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels as Mozart‘s Serpetta. In 2021, she performed the title role in Janáček‘s Katya Kabanova at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival.
The winner of numerous vocal competitions, she received the Classic Prague Award 2018 for best chamber performance and the Thalia Award 2019 for outstanding stage performance in the Ostrava production of Martinů's Juliette. In 2021, Supraphon released her first profile CD, titled Phidylé, which was named Gramophone Editor’s Choice.

Photo: Pavel Hejný