István Kovács

Solista

The Hungarian bass, István Kovács was born in 1972.
He studied at the Franz Liszt Music School in Pécs, then he went to Budapest to continue his studies with Katalin Schulcz. For a long time his mentor has been László Polgár, the world‐renowned Hungarian bass and Sherman Lowe.

At the ARD Competition in Munich 1998 he was given a special sponsorship award and in 1999 he was awarded 3. prize at the Salzburg Mozart Competition. István Kovács was heard at the ARD Competition by Claudio Desderi, who invited him to sing in six productions at the Teatro Regio in Torino in the season 1999/2000.


He has performed at the Hungarian State Opera, the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg, the Salzburger Festspiele, Frankfurt am Main Opera, and Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden, among many others. István Kovács sang the role of Selim in Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia at the St. Moritz Opera‐Festival and in summer 2004 he sang and played the role of Bluebeard in Bluebeard’s Castle by Bartók in a film production for the Hungarian Television.

In the season 2010‐2011, he will sing Mendelssohn: Elias, Bach: Mattheus‐passion and Escamillo in Hungary, Bach: h‐moll Messe and Honegger Jean d’Arc with Helmuth Rilling in Caracas. In January 2011 he sings Duke Bluebeard with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer in Dortmund.