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The Slovak soprano, Simona Houda-Šaturová, was only 5 when she was given her first violin lesson. She studied singing at the Bratislava Conservatory and attended various master-classes, most notably with the Romanian soprano singer
Ileana Cotrubas in Vienna and Margreet Honig in Amsterdam. She was awarded the Thalia Prize for the best vocal performance of the year 2001 as Giulietta in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi. In August 2007, she was received the Förderpreis der Walter und Charlotte Hamel-Stiftung (Walter and Charlotte Hamel Foundation prize) Award for outstanding vocal achievement at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.
Simona Šaturová has had an active international career performing in operas, concerts, and recitals since the early 1990’s. She began her career as a member of the Prague Chamber Opera from 1991 to 1995. She was a member of the Prague State Opera from 1994 to 1998, where she portrayed such roles as Adele in Die Fledermaus, Angelica in Orlando furioso, Frasquita in Carmen, Leni in Gottfried von Einem's The Trial, Oscar in Un ballo in maschera, and Papagena in Die Zauberflöte. She has since returned to the Prague State Opera as a guest artist as the title heroine in Lucia di Lammermoor (2004, 2008, and 2009), Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia (2005), Gilda in Rigoletto (2008-2009), Rosina (2009). She appeared as Sandrina in La finta giardiniera (2008) at the Estates Theatre in Prague and as Gilda at the Brno National Theatre (2008). She has also made numerous appearances at the National Theatre Prague (Gilda, Konstanze, Pamina, Susanna,..). She appeared as a guest in a gala concert with Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel in 2009.
Since 1999, Simona Šaturová has worked as a freelance artist with opera companies around the world. She made her debut at the Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte in 2007. She has since returned to that house as Madama Cortese in Il Viaggio a Reims (2008), Oscar (2008), and Lucia (2010). Since her last minute engagement as Ilia in Idomeneo at the Théatre de la Monnaie in Brussels in 2010, she regularly returns to this theatre (Ilia, Sandrina), most recently end of 2012 as Violetta Valéry. It is the place where she also starts the recent season (2012-2013) as Servilia in La Clemenza di Tito under Ludovic Morlot, followed in spring by Gilda in Rigoletto in a new production by Robert Carsen under Carlo Rizzi. Since her highly acclaimed success as Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail she is also closely connected to the Aalto-Theatre in Essen and in this season (2013-2014) performs as Violetta in La Traviata, Adina in L’elisir d’amore and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. A guest performance with Mysliveček`s L’Olimpiade for the first time leads her to the Theater an der Wien. So far she could also be heared on the stages of Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Opéra de Monte Carlo, Oper Frankfurt and Megaron Mousikis in Athens. Her repertoire also includes the roles of Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, Gilda in Rigoletto, Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Oscar in Un Ballo in Maschera, Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia or Adele in Die Fledermaus.
Simona Šaturová has also earned an international reputation as a concert and oratorio singer. She made her debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2006, and in the same year sang the soprano part in
Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 under
Christoph Eschenbach on the occasion of the reopening of the famous Salle Pleyel in Paris. As a result of her spectacular performance, the
Philadelphia Orchestra immediately invited her to appear at concerts in Philadelphia and New York's Carnegie Hall. The live recording of these concerts was released by Ondine in February 2009 and in May featured on the Quarterly Critics' Choice ("Bestenliste") of the German Record Critics. Other recent engagements of importance, besides Elias Tour with
Thomas Quasthoff include Mega-concert of Symphony of a Thousand in occassion of 100th anniversary of the death of
Gustav Mahler, performed in front of 17,000 listeners in Prague,
Hamburg and Hannover in May 2011. She has appeared as a guest performer with orchestras and in recitals in such venues as Carnegie Hall in New York, Herkules-Saal in Munich, Konzerthaus in Vienna, La Salle Pleyel in Paris and the Tonhalle Zürich, in Dallas, Detroit (USA), Oslo, Toronto, Granada, Istanbul, Tokyo (Japan), Tel Aviv (Israel) and Venezuela, and at the
Oregon Bach Festival in Eugene, the Festival Internazionale di Musica e Arte Sacra Roma, the Vienna Spring Festival or the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.
Conductors with whom Simona Šaturová has worked include Serge Baudo,
Rolf Beck, Jiří Bělohlávek, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Sylvain Cambreling,
Christoph Eschenbach, Adam Fischer,
Iván Fischer, John Fiore, Leopold Hager,
Martin Haselböck Philippe Herreweghe, Christopher Hogwood, Manfred Honeck, Sir
Neville Marriner, Kent Nagano, Tomáš Netopil, Krzysztof Penderecki,
Helmuth Rilling, Gennadij Rožděstvenskij, and others.
Simona Šaturová has an exceptional relationship to Mozart’s music: “His music has always been with me. His Mass in C minor has been an especially important work for me. I have already sung it more than 50 times all over the world.” In January 2009 she performed her favourite piece of music at the Sistine Chapel as a guest of Pope Benedict XVI in a concert broadcast internationally. In the recent season (2012-2013) she sang it with
Hans-Christoph Rademann in Stuttgart and also with the
Collegium 1704 under Václav Luks in Prague and
Dresden. Further engagements lead her to the
WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln in Essen and Cologne with
Gabriel Fauré`s Requiem under Leo Hussain, to the
MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig with Gustav Mahler`s Symphony No. 2 under
Thomas Dausgaard and also to Rome with Antonín Dvořák's Stabat mater under Tomáš Netopil.
Simona Šaturová has featured on CD recordings for the Supraphon, Hänssler classic and Classico labels and for Carus Verlag and Sony/BMG. Her recordings include a disc of sacred music by W.A. Mozart on the Arco Diva label,
Camille Saint-Saëns' Oratorio de Noël on the Sony/BMG label, Joseph Haydn's Harmonie-Messe and Theresienmesse on the Hänssler Classics label. In June 2009 the Orfeo label released her first solo recording with the
NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover under the title “Haydn Arias”. “She demonstrates her prowess with Haydn's allegedly simple melodies: The listener hears a crystal clear and consistently expressive voice with a fine dynamic range, even when singing coloraturas and high notes." (Der Kulturspiegel, July 2009). This CD was labelled “Editor’s Choice” by Gramophone Magazine. Her latest recording “Gloria” with
Collegium Marianum on Ars-Produktion label (2013) includes Adveand Christmas music including outstanding Tarquinio Merula’s Virgin’s Lullaby framed by Zbyněk Matějů composition Ad Te Domine. |
