Marián Chudovský

Biography

He was born in 1959 in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. He studied opera directing at the University of Performing Arts in Bratislava in the class of Branislav Kriška (graduating in 1984). He worked as stage director and dramaturge (1984-88) and as artistic director (1986-88) at the State Theatre Opera in Košice, artistic director of the Slovak National Theatre Opera in Bratislava (1988-89), artistic director and stage director at the Jozef Gregor Tajovský Theatre Opera in Banská Bystrica, today’s State Opera Banská Bystrica (1991-93), director of the Zvolen Castle Plays summer theatre festival (1993), stage director of the operetta section of the Nová scéna (New Stage) in Bratislava (1993-96), and as film director for the Markíza television channel (1996-2002). He applied his experience and clear-cut opinions of music theatre to the greatest extent as artistic director of the Slovak National Theatre Opera from 2002 to 2006. Under his management, it profiled itself as a dramaturgically progressive and open opera stage also presenting, in addition to the standard repertoire, pre-classical (Händel’s Alcina) and modern works (Britten’s Peter Grimes, Beneš’s The Players) rendered by top-class performers and led by inspiring domestic and foreign artists (the stage directors Peter Konwitschny and Martin Bendik, the conductors János Kovács and Ondrej Lenárd). During his era, the Slovak National Theatre Opera was highly acclaimed both at home and abroad. Marián Chudovský has to date created some sixty opera and operetta productions. Besides the aforementioned ensembles, he has also worked as stage director for the National Theatre Opera in Prague, the Janáček Opera of the National Theatre in Brno, the Opera of the State Theatre in Ostrava (today the Moravian-Silesian National Theatre), the Chamber Opera in Bratislava, as well as the Vest Norges Opera in Bergen, Norway. His productions have been staged at festivals and music events in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland and Japan. In addition to theatre work, he has also regularly collaborated as a screeenwriter and film director with Slovak Television and some of his TV productions have been presented at prominent European festivals (Golden Prague, Grand Prix d’Italia, Cannes). His most noteworthy productions include: Verdi’s Rigoletto (Bratislava 1987), I due Foscari (Košice 1987) and La Traviata (Bratislava 1992), Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia (Chamber Opera in Bratislava 1988), Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen (Košice 1988) and Jenůfa (Banská Bystrica 1999), Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur (Bratislava 1989), Dvořák’s The Devil and Kate (National Theatre in Prague 1990), Donizetti’s La Favorite (Banská Bystrica 1992), Offenbach’s Les Contes d‘Hoffmann (Ostrava 1992), Tchaikovsky’s The Maid of Orleans (Bratislava 2001), Bizet’s Carmen (Bratislava 2002), Puccini’s La Bohème (Bergen 2004), Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo‘s I Pagliacci (Banská Bystrica 2000 and Bratislava 2006) and Samson et Dalila (National Theatre in Prague 2006). Update: May 2007