Passione d’amore

The Ukrainian-German soprano Kateryna Kasper is renowned for her stylistic versatility in opera, oratorio and song. She performs regularly at major opera houses, concert halls and festivals worldwide, earning acclaim for her nuanced interpretations and expressive artistry.
 
Her recent successes include acclaimed debuts at the Staatsoper Berlin in Vivaldi’s Il Giustino and at the Salzburger Festspiele in Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor. She has also debuted roles such as Venus in Mozart’s Ascanio in Alba, and Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen at Oper Frankfurt. Other notable engagements include Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo with the Arion Baroque Orchestra in Montreal, as well as performances in Basel and Vienna with the Kammerorchester Basel under René Jacobs.
 
In 2025, Kasper debuts as Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo with the Freiburger Barockorchester, and as Piacere in Handel’s Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno with B’Rock Orchestra, with performances at Teatro Real Madrid, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, as well as in Seoul, Tongyeong and Tokyo. Additionally, she makes her debut as Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande at the Longborough Festival Opera.
 
From 2014 to 2024, Kasper was an ensemble member of Oper Frankfurt, where she portrayed a wide range of roles spanning various eras. She also excels in operetta. In oratorio, Kasper e.g. toured extensively with Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Freiburger Barockorchester. With Collegium 1704, she performed in Mysliveček’s Abramo ed Isacco.
 
Kateryna Kasper’s concert repertoire spans from Bach’s oratorios and passions to Mahler’s symphonies, as well as works by Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Dvořák, Poulenc and Henze. She has collaborated with leading orchestras and ensembles, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orquestra, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, Ensemble Modern, Holland Baroque and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.
 
Kasper is deeply passionate about song repertoire, focusing on German and Ukrainian Romanticism. Her debut album “O wüßt ich doch den Weg zurück…”, featuring romantic songs about childhood and fairy-tale worlds, was recorded with Hilko Dumno on Richard Wagner’s historic Steinway piano in Bayreuth. In 2022, she released recordings of song cycles by Shostakovich and Weinberg with Trio Vivente, Weber’s Freischütz with the Freiburger Barockorchester (awarded the Opus Klassik), and her second song album “Ein süßes Deingedenken”, featuring songs by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn with Dmitry Ablogin on a historical 1835 fortepiano.
 
Kasper studied with Raisa Kolesnik at the Prokofiev Music Academy in Donetsk, Ukraine, before continuing in Nuremberg with Edith Wiens and in Frankfurt with Hedwig Fassbender. In 2014, she won the prestigious International Mirjam Helin Singing Competition in Helsinki.

The baritone Roman Hoza studied in Brno and Vienna. He is a graduate of the prestigious Young Singers Project of the Salzburger Festspiele and the opera studios of the Opéra National de Lyon and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf.
 
In 2015, he made his debut at the National Theatre in Prague as Figaro in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and he has been one of its regular guests ever since. He joined the ensemble of soloists at the National Theatre in Brno in September 2016, and since then has sung a number of key baritone parts there (for example, Belcore in Gaetano Donizetti’s opera L’Elisir d’Amore and Escamillo in Georges Bizet’s Carmen). He has performed as a guest for opera audiences in Vienna, Lyon, Salzburg, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Cologne, Kaiserslautern, and other cities. Mozart and Rossini roles are a key part of his repertoire. In the 2019/1920 season, Roman Hoza returned to the Deutsche Oper am Rhein – first as a guest and a year later as a member of the permanent ensemble. In the 2023/2024 season, he will appear there as Taddeo in Gioacchino Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri, in Jerry Bock’s musical Fiddler on the Roof, and in the world premiere of Manfred Trojahn’s opera Septembersonate.
 
Roman Hoza is in great demand as a performer of the concert repertoire. In October 2023, he sang in Rome in Dvořák’s cantata The Spectre’s Bride, under the baton of Jakub Hrůša with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. During his collaboration with Václav Luks (Collegium 1704) and other ensembles focusing on early music (Collegium Marianum, Ensemble Inégal, Musica Florea, Czech Ensemble Baroque), he has appeared many times as a soloist, for example in Georg Frideric Handel’s oratorio The Messiah or Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion.
 
Songs occupy a special place in his singing career. He is a winner of the song category of the International Antonín Dvořák Singing Competition in Karlovy Vary. Roman Hoza performed Robert Schumann’s cycle Dichterliebe at the Rudolfinum and in 2022 he sang Gustav Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer under the baton of Robert Kružík with the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra. In the summer of 2023, he presented song cycles by French composers (Maurice Ravel, Jaques Ibert, Francis Poulenc) in Düsseldorf.

Since it was founded in 1997, the Prague ensemble Collegium Marianum has focused on presenting the music of the 17th and 18th centuries, especially by composers who were born or active in central Europe. One of the few professional ensembles specialising in this field in the Czech Republic, Collegium Marianum not only gives musical performances, but regularly also stages scenic projects.
 
The ensemble works under the artistic leadership of the traverso player Jana Semerádová who also regularly appears as a soloist with some of the most eminent European orchestras. Her active research, together with her study of Baroque gesture, declamation, and dance, has enabled Semerádová to broaden the artistic profile of the Collegium Marianum ensemble from a purely musical focus to multi-genre projects featuring Baroque dance and theatre. This background also informs her unique, thematic programming, which has resulted in a number of modern-day premieres. The ensemble works closely with renowned soloists (Hana Blažíková, Simona Houda-Šaturová, Roberta Mameli, Raffaele Pe, Chantal Santon Jeffery, etc.) and has carried out projects with leading conductors and directors (e.g. Andrew Parrott, Rudolf Lutz, Benjamin Lazar, and Jean-Denis Monory). Its artistic collaboration with the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles has produced dramaturgically extraordinary projects involving French Baroque music and dance (such as Michel-Richard de Lalande’s Grands Motets), including modern premieres. Collegium Marianum also presents original projects with the Buchty a loutky puppet theatre company (for example Francesco Cavalli’s Calisto and Georg Frideric Handel’s Acis and Galatea).
 
Collegium Marianum has received critical acclaim both at home and abroad. The ensemble has appeared extensively on Czech Radio and TV as well as on radio abroad. The performances of the ensemble at music festivals and prestigious venues, including Oude Muziek Utrecht, Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci, Händel-Festspiele in Halle, Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, Bachfest Leipzig, Festival de Sablé, Klangvokal Dortmund, Palau de la Música Catalana (Barcelona), Prague Spring, St. Wenceslas Music Festival, and Concentus Moraviae, have met with great success. For the Händel-Festspiele in Halle festival in 2023, Collegium Marianum prepared a stage performance of Handel’s opera Alessandro Severo.
 
In 2008, the ensemble started successful cooperation with the Supraphon label, which has already released ten of its recordings of music by well-known and lesser-known composers, such as Jan Dismas Zelenka, František Jiránek, Jan Josef Ignác Brentner, and Josef Antonín Sehling as part of their “Music from Eighteenth-Century Prague” series. In 2022, the CD “A Lily Among Thorns” with Hana Blažíková was nominated for the Anděl Awards.
 
Collegium Marianum is the ensemble in residence of the Summer Festivities of Early Music international festival. In January 2010, it received the merit award for the quality and dissemination of Czech music from the Czech section of the International Music Council of UNESCO.

One of the most prominent personalities of the international early music scene, flautist Jana Semerádová is a world-class soloist, conductor, musicologist and creator of unique artistic projects. A graduate of the Prague Conservatory, the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague (Theory and Practice of Early Music), and the Koninklijk Conservatorium in the Hague, the Netherlands, she is also a laureate of the Magdeburg and Munich international competitions.
 
Jana Semerádová is the artistic director of Collegium Marianum and programming director of the concert cycle Baroque Soirées and the international music festival Summer Festivities of Early Music. She undertakes intensive archival research both at home and abroad and is engaged in ongoing study of Baroque gesture, declamation and dance. Many of her unique programmes are built around the interconnection of music and drama. Under her direction, Collegium Marianum stages several contemporary premieres of musical works each year. Jana Semerádová has a number of CDs to her name; her recordings with Collegium Marianum are featured as part of the successful series “Music from Eighteenth-Century Prague” on the Supraphon label, for which she has also recorded her two signature CDs “Solo for the King” and “Chaconne for the Princess”.
 
Jana Semerádová has performed at leading European concert venues and festivals (such as Bachfest Leipzig, Oude Muziek Utrecht, Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci, Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik, Händel-Festspiele in Halle, Festival de Sablé, Prague Spring, Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, Wratislavia Cantans, Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, the Konzerthaus in Vienna and Berlin, and Palau de la Música Catalana), collaborated as a soloist with various artists, including Magdalena Kožená, Sergio Azzolini, Alfredo Bernardini, and Enrico Onofri, and regularly performs with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Il Suonar Parlante, Wrocławska Orkiestra Barokowa, Orkiestra Historyczna and Ars Antiqua Austria.
 
In 2015 she received her habilitation degree as an associate professor of flute from the Faculty of Music and Dance at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Since 2024, she has been teaching at the Kryszstof Penderiecki Academy of Music in Kraków.
 
In 2019 she was awarded the prize of the Prague Group of the Society for Arts and Sciences. A year later, Jana Semerádová and Erich Traxler were nominated for the Anděl Awards (category Classics) for their CD “Chaconne for the Princess”. In December 2024, Jana Semerádová was awarded the prestigious French Order of Arts and Letters (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres), at the grade of Knight (Chevalier).

Lenka Torgersen studied violin at the Pilsen Conservatory and subsequently at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under Václav Snítil. After graduating she focused intensively on Baroque violin and honed her skills at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis under Chiara Banchini.
 
Lenka Torgersen is the concert master of Collegium Marianum. From 1999 to 2012 she was the concert master of Collegium 1704; currently she also works regularly with other Czech and international ensembles including La Cetra Barockorchester Basel, Ensemble 415, Freitagsakademie (Bern), Ensemble Inégal, and others. As a chamber musician and soloist she performs at major European stages and music festivals and also collaborates with various leading figures in early music (e.g. René Jacobs, Andrea Marcon, Jordi Savall, Andrew Parrott).
 
In 2010 as a soloist with Collegium 1704 she recorded the works of Antonín Reichenauer, for which she received the Diapason d’Or award. In 2013 she recorded a solo CD “Il Violino Boemo” (Supraphon), a modern-day premiere reviving the sonatas of the 18th century Czech violin virtuosi.
 
From 2008 to 2011 she taught Baroque violin at Charles University in Prague and from 2018 to 2022 at the Faculty of Music of the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts (JAMU) in Brno. She is a regular lecturer and teacher in the field of historical performance practice and Baroque violin in the international master classes of the Akademie Versailles and courses organised by the Collegium Marianum Foundation.