Zsolt Péter: “My homeland, my homeland, my everything” – The operatic path of tenor Atilla Kiss B.

As for most artists, the place of birth, the environment, and the culture in which they grow up are decisive. For Atilla Kiss B., the first station of his career was likewise deeply marked by his childhood home: Kalotaszentkirály (Sâncraiu, Romania), the root of both his Transylvanian and Hungarian identity. In an interview with the cultural magazine Fidelio, he expressed it as follows:

“I must say that as Transylvanians we are somewhat tougher, more resilient, because we have been more exposed to the winds and the frosts. Living as a minority, one is compelled to stand on one’s own feet. For this reason, our sense of national identity is much more consciously alive in us than in many of our compatriots who have not shared this minority fate. Preserving our language and culture has become a matter of survival. That is why folk music and folk dance – once again common treasures – still thrive and flourish throughout Transylvania today.”[1]

Between 1983 and 1989 Atilla Kiss B. was known in his homeland as a professional folk singer, and in 1990, when he auditioned at the Gheorghe Dima National Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca and the Cluj-Napoca Hungarian Opera (in Hungarian: Állami Magyar Opera), he selected pieces from this folk repertoire that he held especially dear. It is no coincidence that already as a first-year student he was entrusted with a significant task in Székelyfonó (The Spinning Room), a musical stage work by Zoltán Kodály that is essentially a theatrical rendering of folk music. Director András Demény cast him in the role of the Young Man or “Legény”. Demény reinterpreted the work, seeking to strip it of clichés in the representation of folk culture – what he called “fetishized decoration, choreography, bravado”[2] – and similar devices. Instead of the usual “folk-play” character, he placed the emphasis on dramatic ritual. The premiere marked a milestone both in the career of Atilla Kiss B. and in the history of the Cluj-Napoca Hungarian Opera.[3]

The political transformation in Romania also left its mark on cultural life. The company’s membership declined, a generational change began, and the young talents entering the stage mastered a multitude of roles through hard work. In 1991, for the first time in its long existence, the company was invited to guest perform in Hungary, as part of the Budapest Spring Festival.[4] The carefully curated program culminated in the “tradition-defying performance of The Spinning Room.”[5] As music critic Géza Fodor wrote, the production was “a serious lesson for Budapest concerning the modern approach to our classics”[6] with an important factor being the “promising,” “poetic” tenor of Atilla Kiss B.

A year later, the next major challenge again connected Atilla Kiss B. to Hungary – and, looking back, we can consider it one of the cornerstones of his career. At the Gyulai Várjátékok (Gyula Castle Theatre Festival), the company presented Ferenc Erkel’s Bánk Bán [7] – the fifth version of the opera in their repertoire since the 1866 premiere. The production was directed by Gábor Dehel, who entrusted the weighty title role to the young conservatory student with only minimal stage experience. The decision was strongly influenced by opera singer and teacher Ágnes Kriza, who played a crucial role in preparing him. It took great courage on the part of the creators, since this cult role carried many expectations. “It also took a kind of pious, naïve ignorance for me to accept it with so little experience and then learn the part by truly learning it step by step”, recalled Atilla Kiss B. in his induction speech at the Hungarian Academy of Arts.

Another trial was that Attila Demény staged a version closer to the original work.[8] Yet the singer’s exceptional vocal endowment compensated for his lack of stage practice and technical polish. “Atilla Kiss B. created a brilliant Bánk Bán. He was highly convincing”. [9] “His acting and singing perhaps seemed a little restrained, but nevertheless we saw and heard beautiful, lyrical moments from him” [10], summed up the critics. This was more than encouragement for a conservatory student: it was solid proof of his ability to stand the test. Without this early “trial by fire,” later opportunities might have developed very differently – for it is rare that an artist is given the same chance twice.

In Ferenc Erkel’s hometown of Gyula, the role of Bánk Bán became a defining part of Atilla Kiss B.’s career. The Cluj-Napoca premiere took place on 3 March 1993. As part of the Erkel series, Kiss B. returned several times to the Gyula Castle Theatre, alternating in the title role with János Molnár.

Two years after completing his studies, in 1998, he had the chance to try himself in the 1930s adaptation by Nándor Rékay, Ádám Nádasdy, and Miklós Oláh. He performed the role first at the Summer Festival in Győr, and later at the Győr National Theatre. In 2000, he appeared at the Ferencváros Festival on Bakáts Square, Budapest, in 2002 at the Hungarian State Opera House, and in 2006 at the Szegedi Szabadtéri Játékok (Szeged Open-Air Festival). “This Bánk is not at all a statue-like national hero. He is much more a sympathetic human being. We do not mourn his downfall – rather, it is his pain that pierces our hearts”, wrote Tamás Márok in Színház (lit. Theatre, a leading Hungarian theatre journal).[11]

In 2008, Attila Vidnyánszky staged the original version of Bánk Bán – the pre-adaptation version – with the company of the Csokonai National Theatre Debrecen, and once again Atilla Kiss B. sang the title role.

The crown of his Bánk bán interpretations came with the opera film directed by Csaba Káel in 2002.[12] The outstanding cast’s performance was universally praised; within the impressive ensemble, Atilla Kiss B.’s achievement was conveyed in the greatest detail by Zoltán Pósa in Magyar Nemzet (lit. Hungarian Nation, a major Hungarian daily newspaper): “Bánk bán (Atilla Kiss B.) begins the great aria Hazám, hazám (My Homeland, My Homeland) before the image of the crucified Jesus. This refers to the concept of ‘the Hungarians as the Christ of nations’ and also to the fact that Bánk stands on ancient Hungarian and Christian moral foundations. He is a valiant, brave man, fighting for the defence of his homeland, yet he recoils from violence. It is only Tiborc’s complaints and his wife’s complete collapse that compel him to transgress the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ […] The two young talents, heroic tenor Atilla Kiss B. as Bánk, and dramatic bass-baritone Attila Réti as Biberach, embody the figures with powerful voices and deep commitment.”[13]

Alongside the national opera, contemporary Hungarian compositions have been of at least equal importance in the artist’s career. Already as a student at the Academy, in 1992 he was given the opportunity to take part in the world premiere of Attila Demény’s chamber opera Parafarm and Emil Vidovszky’s one-act Nárcisz és Echo. [14] In the former he portrayed Hógolyó (lit. Snowball), in the latter the tragic figure of Nárcisz. Both productions were staged by Miklós Gábor Kerényi. Their collaboration – including the Madama Butterfly in Szeged (1995) – brought major recognition only in 1999, when Atilla Kiss B., now a member of the Hungarian State Opera, debuted in the role of Szatjaván in Sándor Szokolay’s opera Szávitri. “The tenor has plenty of demanding passages to sing, perhaps as compensation for the fact that Szatjaván’s role is less rewarding in dramaturgical terms than tenor roles in female-centred operas usually are. Atilla Kiss B. meets the quasi-heroic-lyrical demands of the part with technical perfection. In the high notes his voice sounds beautiful, full, almost steely, without losing its flexibility. Szokolay’s cantilenas, germinating from speech, emerge with instrumental clarity from this well-trained instrument.”[15] – summed up Tibor Tallián in Muzsika, Hungary’s leading monthly journal of classical music.

The series of Kerényi productions continued. In 2000 he was given the role of Dani in György Ránki’s Pomádé király (lit. The King’s New Clothes), and in 2001 he played the Szökevény (lit. Fugitive) in Emil Petrovics’s one-act opera C’est la guerre. The most exciting joint production, however, was the winner of the millennium opera competition announced in 2000: Attila Bozay’s Az öt utolsó szín (lit. The Five Last Scenes), in which he portrayed Ádám. Péter Halász, critic of Élet és Irodalom (lit. Life and Literature, Hungary’s foremost weekly of literature, culture and public life), considered the pairing of tenor and baritone the central element of the work. “[…] Traditionally, they would be adversaries on the opera stage, yet here they slip into complicity, and Kerényi skilfully draws the blasphemous lesson in the final scene: Ádám can hardly part from Lucifer. Of the two, Atilla Kiss B. as Ádám has the harder task; the intensity of his voice-killing part gives it credibility.”[16] Tibor Tallián, in his extensive appraisal in Muzsika, clearly sided with the tenor: “His character-building captured and magnified the music-dramatic significance of Bozay’s Ádám, thereby providing final proof of his stature as a singing actor. […] What makes his Ádám so compelling is that, by nature, he carries a far darker shade than the pure lyric-heroic tenors — his very own shadow. Perhaps I exaggerate in saying that there is more of Lucifer in him than in his companion of wanderings. […] With unassailable credibility he traces Ádám’s stations of dreams, dreams in which the inner temptations of his soul assume bodiless form. […] His consciousness does not fracture between inner extremes of soul and fate; these extremes are forged into a unified personality through the epic, the fate fully lived. He who has a fate is not a troubled soul, but a hero. […] With a depth and significance worthy of the role he recites – that is, speaks and lives – the distilled text of Madách, and thus shapes the role.”[17] With this performance he finally proved that not only does he have a place in the company, but without him the Opera House might as well lower the curtain on productions of such ambition.

During his years in Cluj-Napoca, Atilla Kiss B. already received several roles from the classic heroic tenor repertoire. For example, in 1994 he portrayed the Duke of Mantua in Verdi’s Rigoletto, in 1995 Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Szeged Open-Air Festival, Rodolfo in Puccini’s La bohème, Edgar Ravenswood in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and in 1998 the title role of Verdi’s Don Carlos in an open-air production at Bakáts Square, Budapest. These roles continued and expanded further after he joined the Hungarian State Opera. The 1999 revival of Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Boris Godunov, directed by Miklós Szinetár, was staged for only three seasons due to its lukewarm reception. Still, Iván Kertész, critic of Népszava, named “the remarkable Atilla Kiss B.,” portraying Grigory (the False Dmitry), among the highlights of the production.[18]

In the 2003/2004 season Kiss B. had to tackle two challenging leading roles. On 17 March 2004, the Hungarian State Opera presented Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa – director Attila Vidnyánszky’s first opera staging. About his performance as Števa Buryja – a character at once charming and superficial – Géza Fodor wrote in Muzsika: “Atilla Kiss B. gives a meticulously crafted portrayal. His voice rings out brightly and triumphantly across the difficult part, and dramatically it is a pleasure to see how, after the great classic operatic heroes, he behaves and characterizes so naturally and colourfully in the various yet always testing life situations of an ordinary young man. Alongside Éva Marton’s monumental performance, his detailed characterization represents the most nuanced psychological realism of the production.”[19]

Curiously, the greatest critical acclaim of his career came with his first Wagner role, Lohengrin. Since Katharina Wagner – great-granddaughter of the composer – set the production against the backdrop of the escalating East German communist dictatorship, its premiere on 2 May 2004 became rather scandalous. According to Szabolcs Molnár, critic of Színház, Atilla Kiss B.’s performance was “a genuine masterpiece”[20], while Katalin Metz went as far as to hail him in Magyar Nemzet as the “saviour” of a Lohengrin-character forced onto the wrong track.[21] Géza Fodor summarized his artistic achievement as follows: “Atilla Kiss B. represents perfectly the familiar figure of a charismatic, demagogic young leader. He manages his instrument economically, singing throughout his extensive, increasingly demanding role with beautiful tone and clarity. It should be noted that during this season the tenor’s vocality expanded by leaps and bounds, both in the homogeneous quality of his voice and in the continuity and roundness of his musical phrasing. It was also during this season that Atilla Kiss B.’s talent for characterization became evident.”[22]

His next Wagner role came two years later, on 20 May 2006, when he portrayed Walther von Stolzing in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. On 17 February 2007, he appeared in the title role of Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, alternating with Attila Fekete.[23] “It is truly rare to see two tenors who, in different ways, can both rise to be emblematic interpreters of such a historical and literary figure. Atilla Kiss B. achieves this through the unity of his statuesque bearing and heroic voice, while Attila Fekete achieves it through communicative lyricism and maximum vocal brilliance”, wrote Géza Fodor.[24]

Among the concert performances at Müpa Budapest, two world premieres are linked to his name. The Wales-based British composer Karl Jenkins set János Arany’s ballad A walesi bárdok to music (The Bards of Wales), and at its Hungarian premiere on 29 June 2012 Atilla Kiss B. sang the part of King Edward. In Sándor Balassa’s fourth opera, Földindulás (lit. Earthquake), based on a play by János Kodolányi, he took the role of János Kántor. The premiere took place on 16 October 2015.

A true artist’s stature is defined not only by domestic triumphs but also by international achievements. In 2002, on the stage of the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, he portrayed Don Gomez de Feria in Saint-Saëns’s Henry VIII, partnered by Montserrat Caballé as Catherine of Aragon in what was her benefit performance.[25] As a result, the following season he reunited with the Catalan opera star at the Szeged Open-Air Festival in a large-scale joint concert at Dóm Square. He appeared several times in Japan, first on Miklós Szinetár’s Carmen tour, then in the autumn of 2004 as Turiddu in Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, and in April 2006 as Dick Johnson in Puccini’s La fanciulla del West, staged by Andreas Homoki of Hungarian descent. In 2005 he debuted at the Toronto City Opera as Don José in Bizet’s Carmen, opposite Russian mezzo-soprano Larissa Kostiuk. In 2011, the Paris Opéra Bastille presented Bruno Mantovani’s Akhmatova, in which he appeared as Lev Goumilev.

Any one of these roles could have launched an international career. Yet, in his own words, “the Hungarian State Opera House has always taken precedence”, as the past fifteen years of numerous premieres and repertoire productions have tied him closely to the institution. Alongside his operatic career, his teaching at the University of Pécs Faculty of Arts and the Liszt Academy in Budapest has been equally significant. For him – as for many of his Hungarian colleagues – the role of Bánk bán holds a privileged place in his heart, permanently defining his artistic creed: “To serve with honour and to teach integrity through art.”

[2016]

[1] FGY – Atilla Kiss B.: Az Operaház nálam mindig elsőbbséget élvez (lit. The Hungarian State Opera House has always taken precedence for me). Fidelio, 14 March 2014.

[2] Excerpt from the programme booklet of the production. Adrienne Laskay, A kolozsvári Állami Magyar Opera 50 éve (lit. Fifty Years of the Cluj-Napoca Hungarian Opera). Kolozsvár: Erdélyi Híradó Publishings, 2003, p. 381.

[3] Kolozsvári Állami Magyar Opera (Cluj-Napoca Hungarian Opera), 7 March 1991.

[4] Programme of the Cluj-Napoca Hungarian Opera at the Hungarian State Opera House in Budapest: Camille Saint-Saëns – Ferdinand Lemaire: Samson and Delilah, 19 March 1991; Zoltán Kodály: Székelyfonó (The Spinning Room), 20 March 1991; Péter Vermesy – Áron Tamási– István Szőcs: Ördögváltozás Csíkban (lit. The Devil’s Transformation in Csík); János Vajda – Thomas Mann – Gábor Bókkon: Mario és a varázsló (Mario and the Magician), 21 March 1991.

[5] Title of Gábor Maros’s review, Magyar Hírlap, 29 March 1991.

[6] Géza Fodor, “A Kolozsvári Magyar Állami Opera vendégjátéka az Operaházban” (lit. The Guest Performance of the Cluj-Napoca Hungarian Opera at the Hungarian State Opera House), Muzsika, May 1991, p. 30.

[7] 23 June 1991.

[8] The opera by Ferenc Erkel and Béni Egressy, premiered on 9 March 1861, was revised in 1939 by Nándor Rékay, Ádám Nádasdy, and Miklós Oláh. This version became canonical and almost exclusively performed throughout the twentieth century.

[9] Ferenc Bónis, “Bánk bán – a szülővárosomban először” (lit. Bánk bán – Performed for the First Time in My Native Town), Új Magyarország, 25 June 1992.

[10] Katalin Muzslai, “Kolozsvári vendégjáték Gyulán” (lit. Guest Performance from Cluj in Gyula), Békés Megyei Hírlap, 25 June 1992, p. 4.

[11] Tamás Márok, “Bánk és hagyomány” (lit. Bánk and Tradition), Színház, October 2006, p. 41.

[12] Premiere: Uránia Cinema, 1 April 2002.

[13] Zoltán Pósa, “Operafilm a magyar művek mozijában” (lit. Opera Film in the Cinema of Hungarian Works), Magyar Nemzet, 3 April 2002.

[14] The premieres of the two one-act operas took place on 14 December 1992 as part of the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of Hungarian theatre in Cluj.

[15] Tibor Tallián, “Kiválasztott hölgy” (lit. The Chosen Lady), Muzsika, March 1999.

[16] Péter Halász, “Az öt utolsó szín” (lit. The Five Last Scenes), Élet és Irodalom, 3 November 2000.

[17] Tibor Tallián, “Forma és Formátum” (lit. Form and Format), Muzsika, February 2001.

[18] Iván Kertész, “Ezredvégi, keserű Borisz Godunov az Operában” (lit. A Bitter Boris Godunov at the Opera at the Turn of the Millennium), Népszava, 31 May 1999.

[19] Géza Fodor, “Janáček győz?” (lit. Did Janáček Win?), Muzsika, May 2004.

[20] Szabolcs Molnár, “Szárnypróbálgatás” (lit. First Attempts at Flight), Színház, July 2004, p. 12.

[21] Katalin Metz, “A hattyúlovag Stasi-ügynök múltja” (lit. The Swan Knight’s Stasi Past), Magyar Nemzet, 7 May 2004.

[22] Géza Fodor, “Wagner kontra Wagner” (lit. Wagner versus Wagner), Muzsika, August 2004, p. 34.

[23] Géza Fodor, “Der blaue Dunst”, Muzsika, July 2006.

[24] Géza Fodor, “Nézd legott komédiának és mulattatni fog?” (Deem this scene a comedy and be thou gay?), Muzsika, April 2007.

[25] Premiere date: 4 January 2002.

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