Boldizsár László (photo: DodoFoto)tenor
He was born in Keszthely and raised in Paks, where he started his musical career at the local music school at the age of seven.
He is the founder of Cotton Club Singers and was the leader of the band for 15 years. Cotton Club Singers was the best-known jazz vocal band in Hungary, they published 13 CDs and 2 DVDs. The band had its farewell concert on 9th January, 2009, in Hungary's greatest concert hall, the Budapest Sport Arena. After the disbanding Boldizsár László continued his career as an opera singer.
His first role was Maurizio in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur in Szeged.
He studied bel canto singing with two excellent teachers. The first was one of the most famous Hungarian singing teachers: Olga Sík. Later he went on studying with Berle Sanford Rosenberg, who had been one of Carlo Bergonzi's last students.
He won several awards already in his first season, at the Szeged National Theatre. He was chosen Opera Singer of the Year by the opera website ’momus.hu’ and won the Dömötör Prize for Best Opera Singer in Szeged.
In January, 2011, his first solo opera CD was published with the title ’Vincero’. It contains the most famous tenor arias by Puccini and Verdi. He was accompanied by the Szeged Symphonic Orchestra, conducted by Tamás Pál. During this season, he played Percy in Anne Boleyn in Pécs and Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana in Miskolc.
At the Budapest Spring Festival he played the title role at the Hungarian premiere of Franz Liszt's opera Don Sanche. The concert version of the same opera was performed in October, 2011, at the San Cervantino Music Festival, Mexico.
At the end of the season he had the honour of receiving the Simándy Prize from József Simándy's widow and the Viktor Vaszy Award from the Szeged Theatre.
In September, 2011, the director of the Slovakian National Opera, Peter Dvorsky, the world-famous tenor invited him to sing Cavaradossi in Tosca. During the next three seasons he sang seven leading roles in Bratislava in more than fifty performances, and has been a regular guest singer of the opera house ever since.
In June, 2012, he made his debut as Pinkerton at the Hungarian State Opera. In the following seasons he appeared there successfully in several roles and has been playing in Budapest regularly.In September, 2012, one of his dreams came true: he sang Cavaradossi in Puccini's home town, Lucca. This working process, during which he got familiar with the Italian way of opera acting, has had a great influence on his future roles. In December, 2012, he had to replace the main singer at a moment's notice in Un ballo in maschera at the Stockholm Royal Opera. He sang it with great success, the audience gave him a standing ovation at the end of the performance.
At the beginning of 2013, for the Verdi Bicentennary he started the concert series ’Verdi' n the Mood’ with some colleagues, singing jazz versions of Verdi's works. In June he sang Alfredo in Traviata at Bartók Plus Opera Festival. In September, 2013, he received a really special invitation: he sang the title role in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex in a brand new Chinese opera house, Tianjin Opera.
During his fifth season, in 2014, having sung more than twenty main roles he was awarded the Dömötör Prize a second time in Szeged, for his excellent performance in Hoffmann's Tales. In the 2014-2015 season he sang more than 50 performances. In addition to his repertoire he had several premiers. Among these the most exciting was Busoni’s opera Doctor Faust, in which he sang Mephisto. On 3 July, 2015, he sang Gustavo in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera in the Szeged Open Air Theatre, which is one of Europe's largest open-air theater, with 4,500 spectators in the auditorium.
He is a regular guest tenor at the Hungarian State Opera, the Bratislava State Opera and the Szeged National Theatre. He alse had guest appearances in Győr and Miskolc (Hungary), in Kosice (Slovakia), at the Tartu Vanemuine Theatre (Estonia), in Cluj Napoca (Romania) and in Prague (Czech Republic).
Awards:
2014. Award of Opera Friends, Szeged
2014. Dömötör Prize, Szeged
2011. Dömötör Prize, Szeged
2010. Simándy Prize
2010. Viktor Vaszy Award, Szeged
2010. Opera Singer of the Year, Szeged
2009. Man of the Year, ’momus.hu’ classical music website
Performances at the Opera Festival:
"9 tenor" gála – Hommage à Simándy
Performances at the Opera Festival:
24. 06. 2017.
» Levente Gyöngyösi: The Mater and Margarita
13. 06. 2016.
"9 tenor" gála – Hommage à Simándy
