Tomas Kral

“… muscular, malevolent… and honey toned…” – bachtrack.com. Since 2005 baritone Tomas Kral has appeared with many of the best-known European ensembles, including Collegium Vocale Gent, La Venexiana, Vox Luminis, Holland Baroque, B’Rock Orchestra, Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, Collegium 1704, Collegium Marianum, and Musica Florea. He has performed at the Prague Spring Festival, the Dresdner and Salzburger Festspiele, the festivals of La Chaise-Dieu, Ambronay, and Sablé, and the Early Music Festivals in Bruges and Utrecht, while other venues have included the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Wigmore Hall, and BOZAR in Brussels.

His wide-ranging opera roles include Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Ottokar (Der Freischütz), Uberto (La serva padrona), Giove (Cavalli’s La Calisto), Ernesto (Il mondo della luna), Apollo (Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Handel’s Apollo e Dafne), and the title-role in Suppe’s Boccaccio. He notably took part in the extraordinary staging of Bach’s St John Passion directed by Pierre Audi for Dutch National Opera, and of Mozart’s Requiem at the Kunstfestspiele Herrenhausen and Theater Giessen, where he also took the title-role in a rare production of Telemann’s version of Handel’s Riccardo Primo.

 

In 2017 Tomas was invited by the Halle Händel Festspiele to sing Polyphemus in Acis and Galatea, and during the 2017/18 season he performed Purcell’s King Arthur at the Aldeburgh Festival, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at the Vienna Musikverein, Mass in B minor with Václav Luks at the Maison Symphonique in Montréal, Monteverdi’s Vespers with Gli Angeli Genève under Stephan MacLeod, Bach’s and Kuhnau’s Magnificat settings directed by Benjamin Bayl in Antwerp, Ghent, and The Hague, Clistene (Vivaldi’s L’Olimpiade) with Rinaldo Alessandrini, and Telemann’s Der Tag des Gerichts with Il Gardellino under Peter Van Heyghen. In a new collaboration with Raphaël Pichon and his Ensemble Pygmalion, he performed several of Bach’s cantatas and the role of Jesus in the St John Passion in concerts throughout Europe.

 

He began the 2018/19 season with his début as Stárek in Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa at the Opéra de Dijon, later revived at the Théâtre de Caen. Other highlights of the season included concert tours of Handel’s Israel in Egypt and the Bach’s Mass in B minor with Václav Luks and his Collegium 1704 as well as Purcell’s Hail Bright Cecilia at the Konzerthaus in Vienna with Vincent Dumestre and Le Poème Harmonique. Tomas started a new collaboration with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne, presenting Bach cantatas conducted by Raphaël Pichon. He also pursued a vast concert tour with Dunedin Consort celebrating the work of Bach including the St Matthew Passion conducted by Trevor Pinnock and other cantatas conducted by John Butt.

 

Subsequently, he sang concerts and operas with Václav Luks in Moscow, Prague, Dresden, Brno, Versailles, and Caen. The baritone started collaborating with the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra conducted by Christophe Rousset for Bach concerts presented in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. He revived the programme Liebster Jesu with Les Muffatti with concerts in Riga and the Bozar in Brussels, released his solo concert programme Kings in the North at the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival as well as in Wrocław and contributed to the rediscovery of Jacob Schuback’s oratorio Die Jünger zu Emmaus (Cleophas) alongside {oh!} Orkiestra led by Martyna Pastuszka.

 

Tomas’ last seasons were defined by Baroque opera roles like Erode in Stradella’s San Giovanni Battista (Poland), Pimpinone in Albinoni’s Vespetta e Pimpinone (Ljubljana), Apollo in Handel’s Apollo e Dafne (Dortmund Vokalfestival and Halle Händelfestspiele), the title role of Aeneas from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas alongside L’Arpeggiata under the direction of Christina Pluhar (Herrenhaus Hannover). In addition, Tomas performed Bach oratorios and passions with Concerto Copenhagen under Lars Ulrik Mortensen. Tomas returned to Thomas-Kirche Leipzig, to perform St John Passion alongside the Thomanerchor and the Gewandhausorchester under Andreas Reize.

 

Upcoming highlights during the 2024/25 season include Tomas Kral performing the title role in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (Theater Winterthur) and the role of Nero in Keiser’s Octavia (Handel Festspiele Halle), both productions with lautten compagney BERLIN conducted by Wolfgang Katschner. He will also take on the role of Gismondo in Caldara’s Il Venceslao with {oh!} Orkiestra, under the musical direction of Martyna Pastuszka (Warsaw), and the role of Rambaldo in Vivaldi’s Griselda, alongside Wrocław Baroque Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Bayl (Theater an der Wien). In concert, Tomas sing Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Nederlandse Bachvereniging conducted by Lars Ulrik Mortensen (Netherlands tour), and Handel’s Apollo e Dafne with Musica Alta Ripa conducted by Bernward Lohr (Herrenhausen Hannover Galerie). Additionally, he will sing the parts of Teucer and Isménor in Rameau’s Dardanus with Capella Cracoviensis under the baton of Marcin Świątkiewicz (Kraków).

 

His many recordings include such rarities as the Missa Votiva and the Lamentationes Ieremiae Prophetae by the great Bohemian master Jan Dismas Zelenka, a CD of rarities by the early baroque Polish composer Marcin Mielczewski, Bach’s Mass in B minor with Collegium 1704, and Leoš Janáček’s Moravian Folk Songs. In 2022, Tomas released Kings in the North, his first solo album (Aparté) recorded with Wrocław Baroque Orchestra conducted by Jarosław Thiel.