DAGMAR PECKOVÁ APPEARING ON STAGES WORDLWIDE

The Czech mezzo-soprano Dagmar Pecková, holder of the prestigious Czech Thalia Award and world-famed diva, released in the spring an album featuring a selection of her recordings of songs by Mahler, Wagner, Berio and Brahms (SU 4171–2), and is now putting the finishing touches in Bratislava to a new Supraphon disc with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, scheduled for release next spring. Dagmar Pecková is currently also preparing for performances with the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Czech Philharmonic, as well as tours of Poland and the USA.

The acclaimed singer has accepted the Czech Philharmonic’s in­vitation to join them during their November tour of the USA. The programme will include Antonín Dvořák’s Stabat Mater, Op. 58. Dagmar Pecková will sing alongside the soprano Lucie Silkenová, the tenor Jaroslav Březina and the bass Jan Martiník under the baton of Jiří Bělohrádek, the Czech Philharmonic’s mu­sic director and chief conductor.

She will be performing at concert halls in California: on 5 November in Northridge and on 9 November in Berkeley. “My most recent tour with the Czech Philharmonic was of Tokyo in 2007. I was naturally pleased by Jiří Bělohlávek’s in­vitation to this year’s trip. Our collaboration has always been extremely creative and, in the final analysis, it represents Czech music. I find it highly rewarding to participate in communicating the beauty of Dvořák’s music abroad. But I would be just as pleased to give a performance with the Czech Philharmonic in the Czech Republic,” Pecková says.

Dagmar Pecková has regularly appeared on concert and opera stages worldwide. Her voice has been heard by audiences at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Royal Opera Covent Garden and Wigmore Hall in London, as well as in Paris, Amsterdam, Strasbourg, Lausanne and Tel Aviv. She received a 1999 Czech Thalia Award for her portrayal of the titular role in Bizet’s opera Carmen at the National Theatre in Prague. Dagmar Pecková has collaborated with Supraphon since 1994, when the label released her debut album. The CD featuring Dvořák songs earned her a Supraphon Gold Disc in 2003. The singer lives with her husband and children in the village of Heuweiler, nearby Freiburg, Germany.