Pavel Vaněk

Biography

In 1979, Pavel Vaněk graduated from Plzeň Conservatory, where he studied piano. Between 1986 and 1991 he studied conducting at Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts with František Vajnar. From 1982 to 1984 he worked as a repetiteur at the J. K. Tyl Theatre in Plzeň. Subsequently, he was engaged for a short time with the Czech Radio Chorus. In 1985 he began working as second chorus master of the Prague Male-Voice Choir of the Prague Symphony Orchestra. In 1989 he joined the National Theatre Opera as an assistant to the opera chorus, in 1992 he started to work here as second chorus master and from September 2000 to December 2022 he was chief chorus master of the National Theatre. To date, he has prepared there some thirty productions, including Verdi’s Rigoletto, Macbeth, Aida, Falstaff and Simon Boccanegra, Bellini’s Norma, Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Puccini’s Tosca and La fanciulla del West, Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, Bizet’s Carmen, Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni and Idomeneo, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades, Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer, Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, The Devil’s Wall and The Secret, Janáček’s The Excursions of Mr. Brouček and Jenůfa, Martinů’s The Greek Passion and The Miracles of Mary, Dvořák’s Rusalka and The Jacobin, Wagner’s Parsifal and Tannhäuser, Britten’s Gloriana, Fibich's The Fall of Arkun, Rossini's La cenerentola as well as Suchý and Šlitr’s jazz opera A Walk Worthwhile. As a chorus master, he has collaborated with leading music ensembles (Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Prague Male-Voice Choir, etc.). As a repetiteur, he participated in a number of concerts both at home and abroad with Opera soloists.