Jiří Heřman
Czechia
Jiří Heřman studied singing at the Conservatory in Pilsen and opera directing at the Academy of Performing Arts (AMU) in Prague. He has earned recognition both for chamber projects staged in unconventional venues and for productions on major opera stages.
Among his chamber projects are Lamenti (2004), an original staged meditation based on a text by F. Micieli and music by M. Nejtek, presented at the NoD Experimental Space in Prague, at Schlachthaus Theater in Bern, Switzerland, and at the Rio Cena Contemporânea festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and the Czech premiere of Benjamin Britten’s church parable Curlew River (2005), staged in the former Church of St. Mary Magdalene as part of the Struny podzimu (Strings of Autumn) Festival.
On the main stage of the J. K. Tyl Theatre in Pilsen, he directed Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah (2002), Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman (2004), which received the Sazka Award and the Divadelní noviny Award, and Gounod’s Faust (2013).
From 2007 to 2012, he served as Artistic Director of the Opera of the National Theatre in Prague. During his tenure, he directed six productions: Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Dvořák’s Rusalka and The Jacobin, Martinů’s The Plays of Mary, Wagner’s Parsifal, and Britten’s Gloriana.
Other projects include a staged interpretation of Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise (2013) in Film Studio No. 4 at Barrandov Studios; Lorca’s play Yerma at the South Bohemian Theatre (2014); Rusalka at the Revolving Auditorium in Český Krumlov; Fibich’s opera The Fall of Arkona at the National Theatre in Prague (2014); Puccini’s Tosca at the Janáček Opera of the National Theatre Brno (2015); Martinů’s The Greek Passion at the Aalto-Musiktheater in Essen (2015); Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the National Theatre in Prague (2016); and a double bill of Martinů’s The Epic of Gilgamesh and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the Janáček Opera of the National Theatre Brno, which received the Divadelní noviny Award for Musical Production of the Year 2016.
His recent productions at the Janáček Opera of the National Theatre Brno include Dvořák’s The Devil and Kate (2016); the Czech premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de loin (2017), awarded the Divadelní noviny Award for Musical Production of the Year 2017; special large-scale projects for the Brno Exhibition Centre (BVV): Gounod’s Faust (2017) and Smetana’s Libuše (2018); Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, which opened the Janáček Brno Festival 2018; Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier (2019); Verdi’s Nabucco (2021); Martinů’s The Greek Passion (2021); a double bill of Janáček’s From the House of the Dead and Glagolitic Mass (2022); and Smetana’s The Devil’s Wall (2026).
In 2022, he directed Handel’s Alcina, created in co-production with theatres in Versailles and Caen. He also collaborated as stage director on a co-production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro with Théâtre de Caen and the Slovak National Theatre (2025). For the National Theatre in Prague, he directed Dvořák’s Armida (2023) and Ostrčil’s The Legend of Erin (2025). In 2024, he staged the world premiere of Ľubica Čekovská’s opera Here I am, Orlando at the National Theatre Brno.
Since January 2015, he has served as Artistic Director of the Janáček Opera of the National Theatre Brno.