Tomas Kral

Biography

“… 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 (Cosi fan tutte), Ottokar (Der Freischütz), Uberto (La serva padrona), Giove (Cavalli La Calisto), Ernesto (Il mondo della luna), Apollo (Monteverdi Orfeo, Handel 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, B-minor Mass for 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 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 France.

He began the 2018/19 season with his role-début as Starek in Janacek’s Jenufa 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 B-minor mass 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 renewed his collaborations with Raphaël Pichon for different projects including a semi-staged St John Passion in Krakow. He also 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 Wroclaw 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) as well as Apollo in Handel’s Apollo e Dafne (Dortmund Vokalfestival and Halle Händelfestspiele). In addition, he performed Bach Oratorios and Passions with Concerto Copenhagen under Lars Ulrik Mortensen, with the Thomanerchor under Andreas Reize and at the Kammermusiksaal in Berlin.

Upcoming projects in the 2023/24 season include further performances of Acis and Galatea with Collegium Marianum in Poland, Ireland, and Luxembourg, as well as with Ensemble MASQUES under Olivier Fortin at the festivals d’Hardelot and Musique et Mémoire in France.
Tomas will ring in the new year in the title role of Aeneas from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas alongside the ensemble L'Arpeggiata under the direction of Christina Pluhar at the Herrenhaus Hannover.
Throughout the season, the baritone will sing different concert programmes with Wroclaw Baroque Ensemble under Andrzej Kosendiak. Furthermore, he will continue his collaboration with Raphaël Pichon and his Ensemble Pygmalion for Bach cantata concerts at Konzerthaus Wien, the Philharmonie Paris as well as Chapelle Royale in Versailles. Another performance in Versailles will be alongside Le Poème Harmonique under Vincent Dumestre with Purcell’s Hail Bright Cecilia! which will be reprised in Krakow.
For Easter, Tomas will return to Thomas-Kirche Leipzig, to perform St John Passion alongside the Thomanerchor and the Gewandhausorchester under Andreas Reize.

His many recordings include such rarities as the Missa Votiva and the Lamentationes Jeremiae Profetae 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 Janacek’s Moravian Folk Songs. In 2022, Tomas released Kings in the North, his first solo album (Aparté) recorded with Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra conducted by Jaroslaw Thiel.

(23/24_Please use this biography exclusively.)