Gustav Mahler		"Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen"
Claude Debussy		Prélude a l'apres-midi d'un faune
George Gershwin		Songs
Maurice Ravel		Boléro

Andrea Kalivodová - mezzo
Ladislava Vondráčková - piano

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Andrea Kalivodová
- mezzo
The prominent Czech mezzo soprano Andrea Kalivodová was born in Kroměříž (CZ/Kremsier) in 1977. She passed her childhood and youth in Brno where she graduated from the Conservatoire of Music (at Jarmila Janíčková), and where she achieved her first conspicuous singing success. For example she became the absolute winner in the singing category in the National Competition of the Czech Conservatoires in Pardubice (1998). She continued her studies at The Academy of Music and Drama, Department of Music in Prague (at Naděžda Kniplová).

During her studies she was taking part in the international master classes, always at the prestigious schoolmasters and artistic personalities (Ralf Düring, Franz Lukasowski, Alexe Gall, Eva Blahová, Fabio Luissi, Otto Schen and other). In the end she decided to pass an offered short term attachement at the University of Music and Performing Arts (Universität für Musik und darstelle Kunst) in Vienna where she passed one year. Her singing and foreign studies induced the young artist to the singing competitions and she often became its laureate. For example in 2001 she achieved a great success in London where she won as a young talent the first prize of the Ema Destin Foundation in the International Singing Competition "The Anglo-Czechoslovac Trust", and she was invited to a concert of the young promising singers directly in the London "Covent Garden" where she made her début with much success. She also became one of the semifinalists in the Belvedere International Singing Competition in Vienna. Among the Czech singing competitions she took part for example in the International Singing Competition in České Budějovice (CZ/Budweis) in 2000, where she won in the category A. In 2003 she became a holder of the Third Prize in the singing category in the Antonín Dvořák International Singing Competition in Karlovy Vary (CZ/Karlsbad). And other awards have followed.

During the time of her studies she started to perform as a guest and cooperate with our prestigious opera theatre stages. In 2001 she first entered the boards of the Prague State Opera in the "The Pounding On the Iron Curtain" project (an anthology of two operas by Vladimír Wimmer). In 2002 she made her début on the boards of the Ostrava National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in the role of Kontshakovna in the opera "Knjaz Igor". In autumn of the same year she passed the great opera "Xerxes" tour with the production "Opera Praha". For this opera she studied the role of Amastrys with which she also visited Germany, Switzerland, France and Luxembourg with much success.

Since 2002 she was performing as a guest in the Prague State Opera. In 2003 she was offered an engagement which she accepted with great pleasure, and the State Opera Prague became her home theatre scene. She has acted here a lot of beautiful roles - the Third Lady in "The Magic Flute", Maddalena in "Rigoletto", Rosalia in "The Lowlands", Alisa in "Lucia di Lammermoor", Ježibaba-Witch in "Rusalka", Suzuki in "Madama Butterfly", Fenena in "Nabucco" and above all Carmen which she sang in the Košice State Opera in Slowakia too. She also performed as a guest in the role of Carmen in the hungarian Sopron.

In December 2003 she performed together with the New York Metropolitan Opera soloist Leo Nucci at a concert at the Prague Žofín Palace. In June 2004 she took part in the gala concert in the Great Hall of the Vienna Konzerthaus to celebrate the acceptance of the Czech Republic to the European Union with success. She gives concerts in almost the whole Europe and she has also visited Japan, Korea and the USA several times. In 2005 she took part in an European Stars´ Tour on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. She has visited the representative BOZAR-Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels or the Kremlin Congress Palace in Moscow.

She likes to have cooperated and cooperate with the prestigious conductors as for example Gaspar Zehndler (The Prague Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra), Petr Vronský (The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra), Leoš Svárovský, František Preisler, František Drs, Jan Chalupecký, Enrico Dovico, Hilary Grifits, Fabio Luisi and other. In autumn 2005 she sang Suzuki in Puccini´s "Madama Butterfly" led by the legendary conductor Bohumil Gregor on the theatre scene of the Prague State Opera.

Today Andrea Kalivodová still belongs by rights to the sought-after Czech artist. Now she´s prepearing an edition of her two CD-ROM. She also cooperates with The Hollaender Calix Agency of Vienna, The Musart Agency of Prague and others. However her indisputable talent and singing skills don´t belong only to the opera. She also devotes considerable part of her work to musicals. That´s also illustrated by a newly forthcoming CD-ROM with the musical songs.

    
Ladislava Vondráčková
- piano