Curriculum vitae

Tomáš Studený (*1976) director, dramaturg, pedagogue, artist

• He is one of the outstanding Czech opera directors of his generation. His scope includes a wide range of productions, from brick-and-mortar theatres to the independent scene. In his work, he deals with opera, from the classics to the present, and also with drama, musicals, and non-traditional forms of musical theatre. He focuses on original dramaturgy and works with text as well. The centre of his attention is mainly on the opera actor, whom he leads to an emotionally suggestive performance.
  
• In 2006, as the director, he was at the birth of an animated film based on the original mini-opera Talking Cattle by composer Ondřej Kyas and librettist Pavel Drábek. This film adaptation was the first directorial collaboration with the Ensemble Opera Diversa. Later he became a regular stage director of the ensemble and staged a number of opera and mini-opera productions by the authors' duo Kyas and Drábek (The Death of Lovers in Shinagawa, Pickelhering 1607, The Pumpkin Demon in a Vegetarian Restaurant, Everyman, Ponava – Disappeared Rivers, Leviathan, etc.) or by other authors (M. Štědroň, I. Medek and A. Piňos: The Cage Case, L. Sommer and V. Havel: Ela, Hela and the Hitch-hiking, M. Štědroň: Palacký His Lamentable End, Chameleon or Joseph Fouché, Magnum Mysterium – The Sacred and the Profane in the Life of Gregor Mendel).
  
• He attracted attention to himself on the opera scene by winning the competition for young directors at the Janáček Opera (National Theatre Brno) in 2009 (Haydn – Lo Speziale). Later he staged Offenbach's Pericola (2012) and Powder Her Face by Thomas Adès (2016) there. He also directed Puccini's La Boheme (2011) and Smetana's The Secret (2017) at the Moravian-Silesian National Theatre in Ostrava and Donizetti's Daughter of the Regiment (2021) at the F. X. Šalda Theatre in Liberec. The same year, he staged Rejcha's Gusman at the Olomouc Baroque Festival.
  
• Since 2005 he has been systematically engaged in pedagogical work. At first at the Brno Conservatory, where he develops the activities of the Opera Studio, together with conductor Tomáš Krejčí and choreographer Ladislava Košíková (Dido and Aeneas 2008, Martinů Cantatas 2009, Sullivan's Mikado 2012, Kytice /Bouquet from Martinů's and Fibich's works/ 2014, Schubert's Domestic War 2016, etc.).
  
• Later, since 2012, he taught Opera Direction as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Music of Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno (his graduates were e. g. Tomáš Ondřej Pilař – 2013 and Marek Mokoš – 2016). Also, he led there as a doc., a three-year grant project VCHOD (Research Centre for Music/Opera Theatre), focused on acting in opera (the final result of this project was an experimental staging of a chamber version of Smetana's The Kiss 2013). In addition, he prepared an exploratory musical NA DNO /To the Bottom/ (2015), with a group of graduating students of Musical Acting at Janáček Academy. He finalised his doctoral studies successfully in September 2018 with the dissertation Actor/singer in musical theatre: comprehensive preparation of a singer for stage practice.
  
• 2015 – 2020 he worked as the artistic director of opera at the South Bohemian Theatre in České Budějovice. (L'occasione fa il ladro 2016, Troubadour 2017 – audience award, Jenúfa 2018 and Dalibor 2019 – adaptation according to Miloš Forman, for which he wrote a new libretto together with Pavel Drábek. 2020 – 2022 he continued as the dramaturg of the opera JD.

2022/10/26