Gabriela Benacková at the Golden Prague 2017

The famous soprano Gabriela Benacková to receive the Golden Prague Lifetime Achievement Award

The soprano Gabriela Benacková is one of the most important representatives of the art of singing and of Czech music of the 20th century and of today. She will receive the Golden Prague Lifetime Achievement Award at the Festival Gala Closing Ceremony September 30, 2017.


Gabriela Benacková

- has often appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and as the Met's first ever Rusalka in Dvorak's opera of that name.

- from the 70s onward has made regular appearances at the Vienna State Opera, in Zurich, at Coven Garden, in Stuttgart, Salzburg and other places in the leading roles of the Czech (Smetana, Dvorák, Janácek), Russian (Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev) and Italian (Puccini) repertoire. Has made frequent appearances also in Japan with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and other leading orchestras and conductors in large-scale vocal works (Dvorák, Janácek, Mahler).

- has made a number of opera recordings, among the most recent being Janácek's Káta Kabanová - a role she has sung at the Met - and The Makropoulos Case (also by Janácek) produced in Brno in 2000. Of particular value are her recordings of the music of Mahler conducted by Václav Neumann

- has appeared with a number of world famous artists, the singers Luciano Pavarotti, Thomas Hampson, Placido Domingo, the conductors Václav Neumann, Sir Charles Mackerras, Libor Pešek, Claudio Abbado, Bernard Haitink, Ricardo Muti and others