2024-05-13 22:20:14
She liked to sing from an early age, but she never thought that as a girl from Lánov she could have a special musical talent. “I had no comparison then,” says Czech soprano Eva Novotná, who has lived in Spain for thirty years. In Madrid, among other things, she founded her own choir and teaches professional and leisure singers, with whom she likes to rehearse Ryba’s Czech Christmas Mass or Dvořák’s Lužan Mass.
She originally graduated from the Faculty of Education, but because she did not yet want to teach music education and Russian, she tried to apply to HAMU in Prague. “And it worked out,” laughs soprano Eva Novotná in the Pavón café in the center of Madrid. “At that time, I went skiing with my friends to the Ore Mountains. They were already waiting for me there, but I took it first with my backpack through Prague, where the tests were taking place,” she recalls.
“At that time, I placed first, so it was clear to me that I wouldn’t make it to the mountains. I got accommodation and stayed in Prague for a whole week for the talent tests,” describes the beginnings of her career as a sixty-year-old opera singer and teacher.
It was at university that she met her future husband, Albert, a Cuban clarinetist and professor at the Conservatory of Music in Havana, who studied at HAMU in Prague and subsequently did postgraduate studies. “I fell in love with his spontaneity and energy,” recalls Eva, who had already started building a name for herself during her studies. In 1989, she won a competition of Czech music colleges and started going on tours all over the world.
Eva Novotná in a dark blue dress. | Photo: Archive of Eva Novotná
She hardly saw her husband
“I liked to sing since I was little, but I never thought that I could pursue music professionally. Even so, I went to the choir with older students in elementary school. While they were in a higher grade, I was only in the third grade,” she recalls Eva, who comes from Lánov u Vrchlabí. “Then when it was decided where I would go to high school, the psychological tests at the time showed that I should focus on the sciences,” laughs the energetic singer.
“So the compromise was the Faculty of Education, where I studied Russian and music education,” describes Eva, who worked with, for example, the Antonín Dvořák Chamber Orchestra of the Czech Philharmonic or worked as a soloist with the Cantores Pragenses choir.
After graduating from university, she and her husband Albert moved to Cuba, from which they returned to Prague after a year due to the turbulent political situation. She started singing at the Karlín Musical Theatre, became part of the Mozart Opera and traveled the world. “Then we got an offer to teach in Valencia,” describes Eva, who also outlines the difficult partnership life of the two musicians. “Because we worked in different music projects, we hardly saw each other at all,” he says.
The Voces de Bohemia Choir, which Eva founded two years ago. | Photo: Archive of Eva Novotná
The way to spend more time together was solved by moving to Madrid and also the birth of two children. While in the Czech Republic Eva already had a “name”, in the new country she had to start, as she says over a cup of café con leche, “from the bottom”. However, her love of singing and diligence soon secured her participation in international classical music festivals in Alicante, Segovia and Salamanca.
“I’ll just give it a try”
Two years ago, she founded the Voces de Bohemia choir in Madrid, and for the fifth year in the Spanish capital she has also presented Rybova’s Czech Christmas Mass. As with the application to HAMU, with the Fish Mass, Eva said one year that she would “just give it a try” and this year will be the sixth year that she organizes in the Madrid church together with the Czech Center Madrid, the Embassy of the Czech Republic and the Club of Czechs and Slovaks a traditionally sold-out Christmas concert.
“Czech is of course very difficult for my students. For example, they pronounce ‘ti’ as ‘ki’,” describes the singer, who provides them with a phonetic transcription for the given text. “Even though I’ve gotten used to living in another country, of course I miss the Czech Republic. It’s Czech songs that remind me of it,” says Eva, whose pupils like to sing the Moon in the Deep Sky from Rusalka. Last year, she organized a concert of works by Czech authors, at which arias from The Bartered Bride or Rusalka were performed.
Our body is a musical instrument
By the window to the street on a red couch, he also describes how important the psychological aspect is to singing. “One student even told me that I should have written on the door, the teacher is a psychotherapist,” laughs Eva. “Our body is a musical instrument and everything that happens to us is reflected on it. I can often tell when a student is not well, so we then talk about it,” says Eva.
Even though she has a thirty-year singing career behind her, she admits that she herself sometimes doubts her performance. “It’s very relative. However, it’s always true that technique is very important, and then the feelings we put into singing. Having only good technique or just being carried away by feelings doesn’t work. A good singer is one who wants to put the best of himself into singing . She opens her heart to her audience, which is of course a very vulnerable position,” concludes the musician, who prefers to sing songs from the musical Mamma Mia! in two voices with her daughter while cooking together in the kitchen.
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