Ales Jenis

Biography

Born July 20th 1977 in Bratislava, Ales Jenis studied piano for four years, beginning his vocal studies at the Bratislava Conservatory in 1998. Immediately after his studies, the Prague State Opera engaged him for the roles of Papageno (Die Zauberfloete) and Morales (Carmen) in 2001. One year later the Slovakian National Theatre Bratislava engaged him for the roles of Morales (Carmen), Silvio (Pagliacci) and Shaunard (La Boheme).

In 2003 the young baritone debuted at the Wexford Festival (Die drei Pintos).
Ales Jenis gave guest performances at the Teatro Lirico Cagliari (Alfonso and Estrella), the Grand Theatre de Geneve (From the House of the dead), the Oper St. Gallen (Eugene Onegin), the Teatro Municipal Santiago de Chile (Lohengrin), the National Theatre Bratislava (Eugene Onegin, Lucia di Lammermoor, L’Elisir d’Amore, La Boheme), the Opera d’Avignon (Werther), the Wiener Volksoper and the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin (Madama Butterfly).

The baritone has continued to establish his young and successful career in recent seasons with important engagements and role debuts, for instance in the title role of Don Giovanni in a new production at the Oper St. Gallen. In the new-years concert of the Deutsche Oper Berlin Ales Jenis made his house-debut with highlights from the Russian repertoire. He then sang Conte Gil at the Opera National de Montpellier in a new production of Segreto di Susanna under the baton of Bernhard Kontarsky. At the Wiener Festwochen, the Holland-festival, the festival of Aix-en-Provence, Metropolitan Opera and Teatro alla Scala Ales Jenis debuted as Convict/Don Juan in a new production of Janacek’s From the house of the dead, staged by Patrice Cherau and conducted by Pierre Boulez and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Ales Jenis has collaborated with conductors and stage directors such as Richard Hickox, Daniel Harding, Jiri Belohlavek, Jiri Kout, Michail Jurowski, Maximiliano Valdes, Paolo Arrivabeni, Luca Ronconi, Pierre Strosser, Alfred Kirchner and Anthony Pilavachi.

Ales Jenis sang the title role in Eugene Onegin at the Glyndebourne Festival 2008 under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski. He performed Sharpless in Madama Butterfly in Santiago de Chile, a role in which he has already celebrated success at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin as well as in Vienna. He also sang Ferdinand in Prokofiev’s Betrothal in the Monastery and Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro at the new opera-house of Valencia, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia.
In 2009 Ales Jenis debuted at New National Theatre Tokyo as Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, sang Dvorak’s Biblical Songs and with Prague Philharmonia under Jiri Belohlavek, and he appeared at the National Theatre Prague in Martinu’s Gilgamesh under Tomas Netopil.
In 2010 he sang Dvorak’s Biblical Songs with Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Jakub Hrusa.

He made his Bolshoi Theatre debut in 2007 as Eugene Onegin.