Eva Urbanová

Biography

The soprano Eva Urbanová has been one of the greatest Czech opera stars for more than three decades. Her most significant accolades include two Czech Thalia Awards for portraying the role of Kostelnička in Janáček’s Jenůfa and a Grammy Award for the album Celeste Aida: Famous Opera Arias. Her recording of Janáček’s opera Šárka (conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras) also received a Grammy nomination. In 2003, she won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for her performance in the role of Kostelnička in a Canadian Opera Company production in Toronto. In 2003, the French government named Eva Urbanová a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Eva Urbanová took private voice lessons with Ludmila Kotnauerová and at the same time worked with the renowned soprano Renata Scotto.

Since 1990 she has been permanently engaged with the National Theatre Opera, where she has enacted a host of distinct roles including Smetana’s Libuše and Milada (Dalibor), Janáček’s Kostelnička (Jenůfa), Marfa Ignatěvna Kabanova (Katya Kabanova) and Míla’s Mother (Fate), Verdi’s Elizabeth and Eboli (Don Carlo), Leonora (La forza del destino), Amelia (Un ballo in maschera) and Amneris (Aida), Richard Strauss‘ Salome, Puccini‘s Tosca, Turandot and Minnie (La fanciulla del West), Santuzza (Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana), Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur, the Foreign Princess (Dvořák: Rusalka), Wagner’s Ortrud (Lohengrin) and Kundry (Parsifal), Fata Morgana (Prokofiev: L'Amour des trois oranges) and many others. At the Prague State Opera she created the title role in Dvořák’s Rusalka. Since 2010, she has been a permanent guest at the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava, where she has sung Janáček‘s Kostelnička and Emilia Marty (The Makropulos Affair), Wally (Catalani: La Wally), Ortrud and Maddalena (Giordano: Andrea Chénier).
In 1998, she debuted at New York’s Metropolitan Opera as Ortrud and she also enacted there Santuzza, the Foreign Princess in Rusalka, Tosca and Turandot. She has performed on the world’s foremost opera stages, including Milan’s La Scala, State Opera in Hamburg, Covent Garden in London, Opéra National de Paris, Teatro Real in Madrid, Volksoper in Vienna, Los Angeles Opera, and others. Eva Urbanová is also well established as a major concert and recital artist and her concert appearances include Verdi’s Requiem (tour of Switzerland), Mozart’s Requiem (Munich), Britten’s War Requiem (Royal Albert Hall, London), Martinů’s The Epic of Gilgamesh (London), Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass (London, Toronto, Vienna, Athens), Dvořák’s Saint Ludmila (Edinburgh). She has also been a permanent guest of the International Music Festivals Prague Spring and Smetana’s Litomyšl. She has collaborated with the distinguished conductors such as Christoph von Dohnanyi, Jiří Bělohlávek, Sir Charles Mackerras, Kent Nagano, Ondrej Lenárd, Sir Andrew Davis, James Conlon, James Levine, Nello Santi, Leonard Slatkin, Roberto Abbado and Riccardo Chailly. Her extensive discography include recordings of Smetana’s Libuše and Dalibor, Dvořák’s The Spectre’s Bride and Stabat Mater, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, Mahler's Das klagende Lied with Kent Nagano, and several arias and duets.

Photo: Schmiedberger