You will appear in La Scala as a returning guest since you debuted there in the previous season as Salome's first soldier and then also sang the Old miller in Jenufa. Did you have stage fright when you stepped on the stage of one of the world's most famous operas?
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I actually got my first invitation to Milan because of a competition. Luca Targetti, who is one of the directors at La Scala, was in the jury of the Belvedere competition in Vienna and even though I got third place in the operetta category, he invited me for an audition. Indeed, you can acquire the necessary routine at competitions, plus I had been to a great many auditions. This was how I won the title of Antonio in The Marriage of Figaro at the Salzburg Festival. It is interesting that the conductor was the same Daniel Harding who will conduct Bluebeard this year and he also conducted Salome last year. Despite his young age, he is a conductor of great musical training and knowledge, so it is good to work with him again. And I hope we will successfully convey the ideas of the world-famous director Peter Stein, who will bring the Bartók opera to the stage. A mezzo-soprano from Saint Petersburg, Jelena Zhidkova, will appear in the role of Judith. She already sang this role in a concert performance in Genoa with László Polgár. The Prologue will be performed by Eörs Kisfaludy, an actor who lives in Switzerland.
My family had a fascination with the violin and the piano but indeed, everyone played music. My mother started her studies at the Kodály Music School in Kecskemét, where she learned to play the violin and the piano. My father also played the piano and my father's grandmother was a piano teacher... Initially, I also learned to play the piano, then I became a member of the Rákóczi Secondary School choir. The choir leader József C. Horváth encouraged me to train my voice and he took me to a voice teacher. After graduation, I spent a year and a half in Los Angeles and there I met the opera singer István Czövek who gave me private lessons. After I returned home, they recommended me to Albert Antalffy-Zsíros who is my teacher even today. I studied simultaneously at the conservatory and at the college of trade, and once I graduated under the guidance of Mária Fekete, I successfully applied to the Music Academy. My teachers there were Erika Sziklai and Sándor Sólyom-Nagy. Once I got my diploma, I was employed by the opera house studio and soon afterward, I was offered a role in Berlin's Komische Theater.
Even though these three performances were presented only at the Budapest Spring Festival in 2005, they were a great experience for me and were so successful that we repeated them in the following year. I think they stand as examples in contemporary opera because, in addition to the usual opera crowd, they attracted lots of young people and many people who had not been to an opera before. I sang Leporello in Don Giovanni back at the opera studio and I also sang the title role in Zagreb during the Mozart memorial year. This spring, I had the opportunity once again to bring this figure to life, in a performance directed by Olivier Tambosi.
