Biography

Originally from Poland, Wojtek Smilek studied at the Krakow Academy of Music. In 1992, he was unanimously awarded the Grand Prize at the Bellini Competition in Sicily. For two years, he was a member of the Vienna opera company, where he played major roles from the French and Italian repertoires.

He has sung at the Radio France and Montpellier Festival in Wagner’s Rienzi, Reyer’s Sigurd, and Puccini’s Missa di Gloria. He has also appeared on stage in Liège, at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, and in Nantes, Lille and Saint-Etienne, as Jorg (Stifelio), Gremin (Eugene Onegin) and Frère Laurent (Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette). He performed at the Chorégies d'Orange as Angelotti (Tosca), and at the Grand Théâtre de Genève as Ferrando (Il Trovatore). He has also sung in productions of Tchaikovsky’s The Maid of Orleans and Britten’s A Midsummer Night's Dream in Strasbourg and Mulhouse, in Verdi’s Requiem and in Samson and Delilah  in Saint-Etienne, and in Don Carlos. He then returned to Liège to play Banco (Macbeth), Sparafucile (Rigoletto), Oroveso (Norma) and Balthazar (La Favoritte). He has appeared in Las Palmas as Alidoro (La Cenerentola).

More recently, he sang in the production of Tosca at the Opéra National de Paris, as Talbot (Maria Stuarda) at the Wielki Theatre in Warsaw, and as Fiesco (Simone Boccanegra) in Avignon and Toulon. He also played the Prince de Bouillon (Adriana Lecouvreur) at the Opéra National de Paris and Jacopo Loredano (I Due Foscari), Banquo (Macbeth), in Marseille Monterone (Rigoletto) at the Chorégies d’Orange, Oroveso (Norma) in Rouen and in Oman, Verdi's Requiem in Saint Etienne, Rouché and Pietro Fléville (Andrea Chenier) in Toulon, le Vieillard Hébreux (Samson et Dalila) in Metz and in  Massy, The Vieillard Hébreux (Samson et Dalila) at the Opéra du Rhin.