Helena Kaupová

Biography

Guest of the National Theatre Opera. She studied singing at the Brno Conservatory and the University of Performing Arts in Bratislava. She attended several international singing classes in Weimar, Siena, Alden Biessen and Gent. After completing her studies, from 1989 to 1991 she was a soloist of the Slovak National Theatre Opera. Since 1992 she has been a permanent guest of the National Theatre Opera in Prague. Here she has rendered a host of lead roles of the early dramatic repertoire, among them Mozart’s Countess (Le nozze di Figaro) and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Puccini’s Mimi (La boheme), Leoncavallo’s Nedda (Pagliacci) and Tchaikowsky’s Tatiana (Eugene Onegin), for which she was awarded the prestigious Thalia Prize in 1994. Among her other roles are Tchaikowsky’s Lisa (The Queen of Spades), Bizet’s Micaela (Carmen), as well as a number of roles of the Czech repertoire – f. e. Smetana’s Mařenka (The Bartered Bride), and the title roles of Dvořák’s Rusalka and Janáček’s Jenůfa. Since 1989 she has performed on opera stages in Europe and overseas. Her first foreign engagement was he role of Nayade (R. Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos) at the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp. She appeared at the Edinburgh Festival as Janáček’s Šárka, as Mimi and Nedda in Toronto, as the Countess Almaviva and Donna Anna in Vancouver, Krista (Janáček: The Makropoulos Affair) in Concertgebow in Amsterdam, Janáček’s Katya Kabanová in Tel Aviv (conductor Jiří Kout), Jenůfa in Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liege and Santiago de Chile, Barena (Jenůfa) in Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and Rusalka in Wexford. With the National Theatre Opera she performed Jenůfa in Lisbon and has taken part in six National Theatre tours of Japan (singing Donna Anna, the Countess Almaviva, Micaela and Rusalka). In addition to opera, she has often sung at concerts both at home and abroad. Helena Kaupová recorded on CD the opera Libuše (the role of Krasava) and Bohuslav Martinů’s opera The Voice of the Forest (the role of the Bride), which was made into a film. Update: October 2007