As of the 2025/26 season, the German conductor Hermann Bäumer will serve as music director of the State Opera in Prague. He will replace Andriy Yurkevych, who is leaving the post for personal reasons. New too will be Chief Chorus Master of the State Opera – from the 2025/26 season, Zuzana Kadlčíková will succeed Adolf Melichar, who will remain at the State Opera as Chorus Master.

- hirdetés -

Hermann Bäumer has collaborated with the State Opera previously, conducting, for instance, productions of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. In June 2025, he will conduct a new adaptation of Aribert Reimann’s opera Lear. Czech chorus master Zuzana Kadlčíková will arrive at the State Opera from the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava, where since 2021 she has worked as chorus leader and conductor.

“We are glad to have such a great conductor as Hermann Bäumer as our new music director. We have already worked with Bäumer, who has extensive experience in leading orchestras around the world, working on various projects, so we had the chance to appreciate his commitment and sensitive musical leadership,” says Per Boye Hansen, Artistic Director of the National Theatre Opera and the State Opera, adding: “We are also looking forward to working with Zuzana Kadlčíková, an experienced chorus master who is renowned for her cultivated approach to chorus, as well as exploring the music in depth.”

“Last year, I had the honour of getting to know the State Opera in Prague when conducting the production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. This opera house in the centre of Europe is home to fantastic singers, a skilful orchestra with a warm sound, a great choir, and wonderful technical and organisational teams, led by Per Boye Hansen. I felt very much at home at Prague’s State Opera and didn’t have to think long about the offer to assume the post of music director. No art form can move people to the same degree as opera, and my wish is to comprehend and convey as faithfully as possible the composers’ ideas. I am really looking forward to the forthcoming collaboration,” Hermann Bäumer says.

“I am simply delighted to have been offered the post of principal chorus master of the State Opera. I look forward to working for such a prestigious institution, to having the opportunity to further boost its artistic qualities,” Zuzana Kadlčíková says.

Hermann Bäumer

Since 2011/12 season, Hermann Bäumer has been Chief Conductor of the Mainz State Philharmonic Orchestra and General Music Director of the State Theatre there. As a former member of the Berlin Philharmonic he understands the subtleties of working successfully with an orchestra and is valued by orchestras the world over for his modest manner and commitment to the music.

He has conducted the orchestras of the Komische Oper Berlin, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Sächsische Staatskapelle, Bamberg Symphony, Bavarian State Orchestra, hr-Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Resonanz and Ensemble Modern, Norwegian State Opera, New Japan Philharmonic and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. Since the 2016/17 season, he has also been the resident conductor of the Hof Symphony Orchestra.

Hermann Bäumer is highly regarded in Germany also for his work with young people, which is reflected in his regular collaboration with many youth orchestras. From 2004-2011 he was General Music Director of the Osnabrück Symphony Orchestra and received the ECHO Klassik Award for his recording of Josef Bohuslav Foerster’s Symphonies No. 1 and No. 2. With the Iceland Symphony Orchestra he premiered two oratorios by Jon Leifs Edda I and II and recorded them on CD. For the cpo label he has recorded works by Bruch, R. Strauss, Gernsheim, Gounod, Rontgen and others.

In Mainz, he not only conducts impressive symphony concerts, and in the 2018/19 season he received the German Music Publishers Association’s award for the best concert programme of the season, but also shows himself to be a skilled opera conductor.

Zuzana Kadlčíková

Zuzana Kadlčíková has been conductor and Chief Choirmaster of the Slovak National Theatre Opera since 2021, where she has been responsible for several new productions such as recently Nabucco by G. Verdi and The Cunning Little Vixen by L. Janáček. From 2020 to 2022 she was external choirmaster of the choir of the National Theatre Brno for the productions of Otello by G. Verdi and Ferda Mravenec by E. Zámečník.

As a répétiteur she cooperated with the Antonín Dvořák Theatre in Ostrava, she conducted and accompanied the opera at the Moravian Theatre in Olomouc (2008 – 2012), and she was also a conductor and répétiteur at the Municipal Theatre Brno (2016 – 2024).

In 2013 Zuzana Kadlčíková made her debut as a conductor in National Theater Brno with the opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Benjamin Britten. In 2018 – 2021 she was assistant choirmaster of the Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno, which she prepared for the annual Opernfestspiele Heidenheim. She was born in Hradec Králové, where she has been involved in music since childhood (singing and piano). She graduated from the Pedagogical Faculty of the University of Ostrava – Music Education and Choir Conducting for Secondary Schools – and the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno – Choir Conducting (prof. L. Mátl) and Orchestra Conducting (prof. R. Hališka).