Simona Houda-Šaturová
Encyclopedia
Simona Houda-Šaturová is a Slovak classical soprano
who has had an active international career performing in opera
s, concerts, and recitals since the early 1990s. In 2001 she was honored with a Thalia Award and in 2007 she won the Charlotte and Walter Hamel Award for outstanding vocal achievement. She has worked at many of the world's best opera houses and concert stages, singing under such conductors as Rolf Beck, Jiří Bělohlávek
, Sylvain Cambreling
, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
, Christoph Eschenbach
, John Fiore
, Ádám Fischer
, Christopher Hogwood
, Manfred Honeck
, Sir Neville Marriner, Tomáš Netopil
, and Helmuth Rilling
among others.
in Vienna and Magreet Honig in Amsterdam
. She began her career as a member of the Prague Chamber Opera from 1991–1995. She was a member of the Prague State Opera
(PSO) from 1994 to 1998 where she portrayed such roles as Adele Die Fledermaus
, Angelica in Orlando furioso
, Frasquita in Carmen
, Leni in Gottfried von Einem
's The Trial, Oscar in Un ballo in maschera
, and Papagena in Die Zauberflöte. She has since returned to the PSO as a guest artist as the title heroine in Lucia di Lammermoor
(2004, 2008, 2009), Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia (2005), Gilda in Rigoletto
(2008–2009), Rosina (2009).
She appeared as a guest in a gala concert with Welsh bass-baritone
Bryn Terfel
in 2009.
Since 1999 Houda-Šaturová has worked as a freelance artist with opera companies around the world. She has made appearances at Carnegie Hall
, the Herkules-Saal in Munich, the Konzerthaus, Vienna
, La Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Megaron Mousikis in Athens, the Opéra de Monte Carlo, the Salzburg Festival
, the Teatro Colón, the Théâtre du Châtelet
, and the Tonhalle Zürich. She also was invited to perform at the Sistine Chapel
for Pope Benedict XVI
in a concert broadcast internationally. She made her debut at the Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte in 2007. She has since returned to that house as Madama Cortese in Il Viaggio a Reims
(2008), Oscar (2008), and Lucia (2010). She appeared as Sandrina in La finta giardiniera
(2008) at the Estates Theatre
in Prague and Gilda at the Brno National Theatre
(2008). Recently she appeared as Ilia in Mozart's Idomeneo
at La Monnaie
in 2010.
In 2006 Houda-Šaturová was the soloist in Gustav Mahler
's Symphony No. 2
under conductor Christoph Eschenbach
for the reopening of the Salle Pleyel
in Paris. She had later recorded that work with Eschenbach and the Philadelphia Orchestra
on the Ondine label. Her recordings include a disc of sacred music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
on the Arco Diva label, Camille Saint-Saëns
's Oratorio de Noël on the Sony BMG label, Joseph Haydn
's Harmonie-Messe and Theresienmesse on the Hänssler Classics label, and a disc of Haydn opera arias on the ORFEO
label. Her latest recording is Gloria on the ArteSmon label. She has also appeared as a guest performer with orchestras in Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Detroit, and Toronto, and at the Oregon Bach Festival in Eugene and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
who has had an active international career performing in opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s, concerts, and recitals since the early 1990s. In 2001 she was honored with a Thalia Award and in 2007 she won the Charlotte and Walter Hamel Award for outstanding vocal achievement. She has worked at many of the world's best opera houses and concert stages, singing under such conductors as Rolf Beck, Jiří Bělohlávek
Jirí Belohlávek
Jiří Bělohlávek is a Czech conductor. His father was a barrister and judge. In his youth Bělohlávek studied cello with Miloš Sádlo and was later a graduate of the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague...
, Sylvain Cambreling
Sylvain Cambreling
Sylvain Cambreling is a French conductor. Trained as a trombone player, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire. He joined l'Orchestre Symphonique de Lyon as a trombonist in 1971. In 1974, he took second prize in the International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors...
, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos is a Spanish conductor and composer.Frühbeck studied violin, piano, and composition at the conservatories of Bilbao and Madrid...
, Christoph Eschenbach
Christoph Eschenbach
Christoph Eschenbach , born February 20, 1940, Breslau, Germany is a German-born pianist and conductor. He currently holds positions in Washington, D.C. as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra and music director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.-Early...
, John Fiore
John Fiore
John Fiore may refer to:*John Fiore , American actor*John Fiore , American politician who succeeded Jim Stork...
, Ádám Fischer
Ádám Fischer
Ádám Fischer is a Hungarian conductor of Jewish family origin. He is the general music director of the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, with which he has recorded the complete Haydn symphonies for the Nimbus label, the first digital recording of the cycle...
, Christopher Hogwood
Christopher Hogwood
Christopher Jarvis Haley Hogwood CBE, MA , HonMusD , born 10 September 1941, Nottingham, is an English conductor, harpsichordist, writer and musicologist, well known as the founder of the Academy of Ancient Music.-Biography:...
, Manfred Honeck
Manfred Honeck
Manfred Honeck is an Austrian conductor, the son of Otto and Frieda Honeck, from a family of nine children. One of his brothers is the Vienna Philharmonic leader Rainer Honeck....
, Sir Neville Marriner, Tomáš Netopil
Tomáš Netopil
Tomáš Netopil is a Czech conductor emerging on the international classical music circuit. He conducted the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005 and made his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in May 2006...
, and Helmuth Rilling
Helmuth Rilling
Helmuth Rilling is an internationally known German choral conductor, founder of the Gächinger Kantorei , the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart , the Oregon Bach Festival , the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart and other Bach Academies worldwide, and the "Festival Ensemble Stuttgart"...
among others.
Biography
Born in Bratislava, Houda-Šaturová studied at the Bratislava Conservatory and then privately with Soňa Kresáková. She attended master classes led by Ileana CotrubasIleana Cotrubas
Ileana Cotrubaş is a Romanian opera soprano whose career spanned from the 1960s to the 1980s. She was much admired for her acting skills and facility for singing opera in many different languages.-Biography:...
in Vienna and Magreet Honig in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
. She began her career as a member of the Prague Chamber Opera from 1991–1995. She was a member of the Prague State Opera
Prague State Opera
The Prague State Opera , is an opera and ballet company in Prague, Czech Republic. The theatre was originally founded in 1888 as the New German Theatre and from 1949 to 1989 it was known as the Smetana Theatre....
(PSO) from 1994 to 1998 where she portrayed such roles as Adele Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...
, Angelica in Orlando furioso
Orlando Furioso
Orlando Furioso is an Italian epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto which has exerted a wide influence on later culture. The earliest version appeared in 1516, although the poem was not published in its complete form until 1532...
, Frasquita in Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
, Leni in Gottfried von Einem
Gottfried von Einem
Gottfried von Einem was an Austrian composer. He is known chiefly for his operas influenced by the music of Stravinsky and Prokofiev, as well as by jazz. He also composed pieces for piano, violin and organ.-Biography:...
's The Trial, Oscar in Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
, and Papagena in Die Zauberflöte. She has since returned to the PSO as a guest artist as the title heroine in Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
(2004, 2008, 2009), Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia (2005), Gilda in Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
(2008–2009), Rosina (2009).
She appeared as a guest in a gala concert with Welsh bass-baritone
Bass-baritone
A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...
Bryn Terfel
Bryn Terfel
Bryn Terfel Jones CBE is a Welsh bass-baritone opera and concert singer. Terfel was initially associated with the roles of Mozart, particularly Figaro and Leporello, but has subsequently shifted his attention to heavier roles, especially those by Wagner....
in 2009.
Since 1999 Houda-Šaturová has worked as a freelance artist with opera companies around the world. She has made appearances at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, the Herkules-Saal in Munich, the Konzerthaus, Vienna
Konzerthaus, Vienna
The Konzerthaus in Vienna was opened 1913. It is situated in the third district just at the edge of the first district in Vienna. Since it was founded it has always tried to emphasise both tradition and innovative musical styles.In 1890 the first ideas for a Haus für Musikfeste came about...
, La Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Megaron Mousikis in Athens, the Opéra de Monte Carlo, the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
, the Teatro Colón, the Théâtre du Châtelet
Théâtre du Châtelet
The Théâtre du Châtelet is a theatre and opera house, located in the place du Châtelet in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France.One of two theatres built on the site of a châtelet, a small castle or fortress, it was designed by Gabriel Davioud at the request of Baron Haussmann between 1860 and...
, and the Tonhalle Zürich. She also was invited to perform at the Sistine Chapel
Sistine Chapel
Sistine Chapel is the best-known chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City. It is famous for its architecture and its decoration that was frescoed throughout by Renaissance artists including Michelangelo, Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio...
for Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...
in a concert broadcast internationally. She made her debut at the Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte in 2007. She has since returned to that house as Madama Cortese in Il Viaggio a Reims
Il viaggio a Reims
Il viaggio a Reims, ossia L'albergo del giglio d'oro is an operatic dramma giocoso, originally performed in three acts, by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Balocchi, based in part on Corinne, ou L'Italie by Mme de Staël.Rossini's last opera in the Italian language Il viaggio a...
(2008), Oscar (2008), and Lucia (2010). She appeared as Sandrina in La finta giardiniera
La finta giardiniera
La finta giardiniera , K. 196, is an Italian opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart wrote it in Munich in January 1775 when he was 18 years old and it received its first performance on January 13 at the Salvatortheater in Munich...
(2008) at the Estates Theatre
Estates Theatre
The Estates Theatre or Stavovské divadlo is a historic theatre in Prague, Czech Republic. The Estates Theatre was annexed to the National Theatre in 1948 and currently draws on three artistic ensembles, opera, ballet, and drama, which perform at the Estates Theatre, the National Theatre , and the...
in Prague and Gilda at the Brno National Theatre
National Theatre (Brno)
The National Theatre in Brno is the major theatre house in Brno. It was established in 1884 by model of the National Theatre in Prague.Nowadays it consists of three stages:...
(2008). Recently she appeared as Ilia in Mozart's Idomeneo
Idomeneo
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712...
at La Monnaie
La Monnaie
Le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie , or the Koninklijke Muntschouwburg is a theatre in Brussels, Belgium....
in 2010.
In 2006 Houda-Šaturová was the soloist in Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
's Symphony No. 2
Symphony No. 2 (Mahler)
The Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection, was written between 1888 and 1894, and first performed in 1895. Apart from the Eighth Symphony, this symphony was Mahler's most popular and successful work during his lifetime. It is his first major work that would eventually mark his...
under conductor Christoph Eschenbach
Christoph Eschenbach
Christoph Eschenbach , born February 20, 1940, Breslau, Germany is a German-born pianist and conductor. He currently holds positions in Washington, D.C. as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra and music director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.-Early...
for the reopening of the Salle Pleyel
Salle Pleyel
The Salle Pleyel is a concert hall in Paris, France. The resident ensembles are the Orchestre de Paris and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.-History and Design:...
in Paris. She had later recorded that work with Eschenbach and the Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
on the Ondine label. Her recordings include a disc of sacred music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
on the Arco Diva label, Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
's Oratorio de Noël on the Sony BMG label, Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
's Harmonie-Messe and Theresienmesse on the Hänssler Classics label, and a disc of Haydn opera arias on the ORFEO
ORFEO
ORFEO is a German classical record label founded in 1979 and launched in 1982. It has released the archives of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. The record label was used by its owner F. Axel Merhle as a tax shelter, which resulted in his prosecution for fraud in December 1985.-...
label. Her latest recording is Gloria on the ArteSmon label. She has also appeared as a guest performer with orchestras in Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Detroit, and Toronto, and at the Oregon Bach Festival in Eugene and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.