Barbora Kohoutková

Barbora Kohoutková currently ranks among the most internationally renowned Czech ballet artists. Upon gratuation from the City of Prague Ballet Conservatory, as a seventeen-year-old, she obtained an engagement as first soloist with the Finnish National Ballet company (1996 – 2002). Her subsequent engagements took her to the Bavarian State Ballet in Munich (2002 – 2003), the Boston Ballet (2003 – 2004), and from 2004 she was soloist of John Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet. After an injury, she bid farewell to Hamburg on July 13, 2008, during the 34th Nijinsky Gala, where she topped off a five-hour-long marathon show featuring some of the world’s top ballet stars by a rendition, with the Stuttgart Ballet’s first soloist Jiří Jelínek, of the final duet of Tatyana and Onegin in John Cranko’s celebrated choreography.

She has accumulated an impressive number of awards from international ballet contests, including bronze medal from Bordeaux (1994), gold medal from Brno (1994), silver medal from Varna (1994), Grand Prix from Paris (1994), Prix espèces from Lausanne (1995), gold medal and Grand Prix from helsinki (1995), gold medal and Grand Prix from New York (1996), Fazer Prize from Helsinki (2000), or Philip Morris Best Artist Award from Helsinki (2002). Her repertoire encompasses leading roles of the classical and neoclassical ballet literature (Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Giselle, La Sylphide, Cinderella, Juliet), in choreographies of Marius Petipa, George Balanchine, John Cranko, John Neumeier, and Jiří Kylián.

Barbora Kohoutková has appeared on the world’s most prestigious ballet stages. She was a guest artist of the ballet company of La Scala in Milan, appeared at the World Ballet Festival in Tokyo, and at many other venues. At the present time, she is active as a classical dance teacher, working with various schools and ensembles, including Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, the Finnish National Ballet, the National Theatre in Prague or the English National Ballet School, as well as in summer classes in different countries.

Her previous appearance at the Prague State Opera took place on March 24, 2008, as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, with the Prague State Opera permanent guest artist, Michal Štípa, as the Prince.