“For a conductor to become the prima donna of the world, for his baton, like some mythical magic wand, to lure thousands into theatres and concert halls – this is a triumph of the twentieth century, perhaps its greatest artistic wonder. It took centuries for the mere time-beater – who once directed the orchestra from behind his violin or harpsichord – to evolve into that special kind of artist who is at once the humble servant of great composers, the tyrannical master of great orchestras, and the adored idol of the public, as the greatest actors and singers once were. In the performing arts of the twentieth century, it was the conductor who grew the most – the performer who usually abandons his own original instrument – for there is only one instrument in the world through which he can fully express himself, and that instrument is the orchestra.” – wrote Sándor Hevesi in 1935.
One of the greatest Hungarian theatre experts of the twentieth century precisely recognised the universal transformation of classical music in the 1900s, when the names of conductors began to stand alongside – and often above – those of prima donnas and instrumental virtuosos. Members of this profession, often surrounded by an aura of mystique, themselves contributed greatly to maintaining the magic of their calling. Iconic representatives of this artist type included Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter, Fritz Busch, Felix Weingartner, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Otto Klemperer – and from the 1950s onwards in Hungary, János Ferencsik.
In this context, János Kovács may be seen as an “anti-star conductor”: he has never been concerned with publicity or “stardom”, never appeared on magazine covers, and has only rarely given interviews. Instead of cultivating an image, he has devoted his time – and still does – to working with scores and orchestras. While many of his celebrated colleagues travelled the world, he – in an equally untypical way – has served the art form primarily at home, in the Hungarian State Opera. Since his operatic debut in 1976, he has stood on the conductor’s podium of the Opera House for more than 1,700 performances, bringing legendary precision and artistic devotion even to ordinary evenings, often transforming them into true celebrations. His repertoire spans a remarkably wide spectrum: although he has mostly avoided pre-classical works, he is equally at home in every stylistic era from Mozart to contemporary compositions, both in the opera pit and on the concert podium.
For the young János Kovács, the path led straight to his lifelong workplace, the Hungarian State Opera, where he signed his first contract in 1973, shortly after receiving his conductor’s diploma from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. His love of classical music came from his family: his father, Endre Kovács (1918–1976), a legendary teacher and literary historian, was an admirer of Franz Schubert and Viennese classicism, and had himself once studied the cello, while his mother worked for forty years as a kindergarten teacher. “Some sort of pedagogic instinct must have been pressed into me – an essential quality for a conductor. I certainly inherited some of it from them,” he once said.
During his secondary-school years at the Béla Bartók Conservatory, he initially tried his hand at composition, but in 1968 – at only seventeen – he was accepted, with age dispensation, into the conducting programme of the Liszt Academy, which opened only once every five years. There he studied under two influential figures: Albert Simon (1926–2000) and András Kórodi (1922–1986). Kovács still regards the latter as his true mentor. It was also thanks to Kórodi, then chief conductor of the State Opera, that the freshly graduated Kovács received an offer to work there as a répétiteur (while Simon invited him to assist in teaching at the Academy).
“At that time the world of opera didn’t attract me much; I hadn’t studied its literature in any real depth. Yet at András Kórodi’s urging I took the job at the Opera House and threw myself wholeheartedly into the joys of coaching singers. For three years that was all I did, and gradually the realm of opera became my home. I have always found the art of coaching fascinating, and I was surprised to discover how rarely our singers read music fluently – most preferred to learn their parts by ear. The role simply longs to emerge from talented singers with beautiful voices, so for me it matters little whether one learns it in two days or two years,” he recalled in 1987 in conversation with Marianne Gách, when, upon his mentor’s death, he “inherited” Kórodi’s title of first conductor. That appointment was the clear proof: János Kovács had arrived as a mature and accomplished artist.
The first decade and a half of János Kovács’s career at the Opera House was devoted to learning, mastering the practical foundations of the profession, and gradual artistic growth. In the 1970s, director Miklós Lukács, chief stage director András Mikó, and András Kórodi – all of them professors at the Academy of Music – placed great emphasis on ensuring that the more than five hundred opera and ballet performances staged each year were of high quality and ran smoothly. The foundation for this could only be a stable and reliable ensemble of artists, which in turn required a constant supply of new, well-trained talent. Promising students were therefore prepared for future work at the Opera already during their studies at the Academy. If they successfully integrated into the company, they could pursue their careers in the security of state employment until retirement.
This was the path János Kovács followed as well. In his early years, he coached soloists in their roles and accompanied rehearsals on the piano. His first independent conducting appearance took place on 16 May 1976, when he conducted Mozart’s final masterpiece, The Magic Flute, in a refreshed cast. “Mozart’s music is extremely demanding and challenging, above all because it is so pure, noble, and simple. A young conductor tends to emphasize his own role and personality, injecting more ‘fire’ and temperament into the music than necessary. This must not happen. The composer’s original intent must be respected – the richness of form and melody must never come at the expense of clarity. Only then can Mozart’s faith in humanity and the beauty of life truly unfold,” he remarked at the time. Two names from the cast stand out: László Polgár (1947–2010), singing his first leading role, and Mária Sudlik (1942–2015), who debuted as Pamina – and who, not long after, became Kovács’s wife and inseparable partner until her death. “She embodies the essence of a true stage singer, the art of instinctive dramatic singing. Standing beside such a personality gives one enormous impetus. For a long time, I thought I would dedicate myself to nurturing singers, but with Mária Sudlik I truly understood what opera is…”
Following this successful debut, the everyday work of coaching continued until his appointment as conductor in 1980. A crucial milestone was the three summers he spent – following in the footsteps of János Ferencsik – as a musical assistant at the Bayreuth Festival, Wagner’s sacred shrine. Though he was still rarely allowed to take the podium at the Opera, by then his repertoire already included not only L’elisir d’amore and Lucia di Lammermoor, but also more complex music dramas such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades and Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky’s original version of Boris Godunov. The Queen of Spades was the first production for which Kovács not only conducted but also prepared the work musically, at its 1977 revival at the Erkel Theatre. This was when the Hungarian opera critics first took serious notice of the young conductor. “First and foremost, we must highlight the young conductor János Kovács, who perfectly senses and conveys all the characteristics of this music, while maintaining complete musical precision,” wrote István Albert in his review.
Although he later took over Boris Godunov from colleagues during its repertory run, this work proved a key milestone in Kovács’s career. Since Ferencsik János and András Békés’s 1972 revival of Khovanshchina, Mussorgsky’s music dramas have held a special place in his heart, even though he has had few chances to conduct them – they have rarely appeared in the Opera House’s schedule since the political transition of 1989. One of his most important recent achievements was the 2019 Budapest concert performance of the original Khovanshchina, reconstructed with meticulous care by musicologist János Bojti and performed at the Palace of Arts with the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and mostly Russian soloists. “Khovanshchina must be performed, because it is a work of world-shattering beauty – a profoundly insightful drama unlike anything else in the operatic repertoire. In this work, everyone is beyond good and evil; everyone is right and not right at the same time. Each character endures their fate; there are no purely virtuous or evil figures, only frail, sinful souls with whom any spectator can identify. A genius masterpiece,” the conductor said shortly after the acclaimed performance.
As the Opera House’s “all-rounder” in the 1980s, János Kovács was entrusted with an increasingly wide repertoire – often having to step in for evening performances without the benefit of an orchestra rehearsal. Under his direction, alongside Mozart’s operas, the most popular works of Donizetti, Verdi, and Puccini were regularly performed. His first encounter as a conductor with Richard Wagner’s inexhaustible oeuvre came in 1983 with Die Walküre, a production he inherited from András Kórodi. In the life of any opera house, a central question is always who holds Wagner’s legacy in hand. Over the past forty years at the Hungarian State Opera, with the exception of Lohengrin, the entire Wagnerian canon has been presented under Kovács’s baton – including, in autumn 2023, after a long hiatus, the near-superhuman feat of conducting the complete Ring Cycle over four consecutive days.
Among Wagner’s operas, the one he has conducted most often is Parsifal, which he “inherited” in 2002 from János Ferencsik and Géza Oberfrank. Of one Good Friday performance of this sacred stage work, a critic wrote: “János Kovács conducts, and he captures perfectly the essence of Parsifal: to move and to stand still at once; to let the listener lose themselves in the sound so that time seems to stop – but not completely – a lingering tension remains; we advance and remain motionless at the same time, as Parsifal himself feels at the first-act transformation.”
Alongside Mozart and Wagner, the third cornerstone of Kovács’s art is his profound and insightful interpretation of Béla Bartók’s works – above all his three stage compositions. Since 1987 he has conducted Bluebeard’s Castle in seven different productions, The Miraculous Mandarin in five, and The Wooden Prince in four distinct choreographic versions. “János Kovács’s conducting is the greatest asset of this revival – he senses the romanticism of Bluebeard better than anyone; his orchestra plays with extraordinary colour and precision. It is one of the finest Bluebeard interpretations I have ever heard, including those of Failoni, Ferencsik, and Solti. For the orchestral performance alone, Bartók’s opera was worth reviving!” – wrote Péter Várnai in 1989. Critics’ praises have been repeated with each new revival ever since.
Although best known as an opera conductor, roughly one-third of Kovács’s 1,700 performances at the Opera House and Erkel Theatre have been spent on the concert podium at home and abroad. Beyond regional ensembles, he has conducted the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra more than 80 times since 1980, the National Philharmonic Orchestra (and its predecessor, the State Concert Orchestra) around 150 times since 1977, and the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra nearly 200 times during the same period. He considers it an important mission that, with the latter ensemble, numerous works by contemporary Hungarian composers have been recorded for posterity in recent years.
Although he initially trained as a composer, he admits he never felt himself sufficiently inspired to compose. Nevertheless, since the passing of the legendary Hungarian conducting generation – János Ferencsik, András Kórodi, Miklós Erdélyi, Miklós Lukács, András Mihály and others – János Kovács has become the conductor most frequently entrusted by the Opera with preparing and premiering 20th- and 21st-century operas in Hungary.
Among his work in this field, one of the most outstanding achievements was the revelatory 2004 revival of Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa, directed by Attila Vidnyánszky in his Opera House debut, with Éva Marton, Éva Bátori, and Atilla Kiss-B. in the principal roles. “Of the older generation, János Kovács stands out – we worked together wonderfully. He is a perceptive, experienced conductor, and he was absolutely passionate about Jenůfa,” said the returning Éva Marton in Magyar Nemzet.
János Kovács’s interpretation was assessed by one of the finest Hungarian music critics of the turn of the millennium, Géza Fodor, as follows:
“I have long followed and admired his conducting. His musicality, sense of form and shaping power, intelligence, the intellectual level of his interpretations, his knowledge of the musical repertoire, and his endurance all secure for him an exceptional place among the Opera’s conductors. (…) In both its dramatic and lyrical dimensions, János Kovács comprehends the composition in its entirety, and he renders it with such transparency and plasticity, with such a dialectic between the great Whole and the tiniest details, with such intensity – and, I emphasize, with such poetic sound and inspiration – that his interpretation not only proves his talent and artistic maturity (which no longer needs proving) but also suggests something more: an emotional surplus, a genuine love for this work – one that, until now, has been rather rootless in our culture – and a deep commitment to it. I consider this magnificent Jenůfa interpretation to be the pinnacle of János Kovács’s career as an opera conductor.”
The distinguished conductor’s artistry has been recognized not only by critics and fellow musicians but also through numerous awards, including the Liszt Prize (1985), the title of Artist of Merit (1996), the Kossuth Prize (2001), and the Commander's Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit (2018). Of all these, he is most proud of his honorary membership in the Hungarian State Opera – an accolade he received, like his wife, Mária Sudlik, from the hands of György Melis.
János Kovács’s enthusiasm for his work has remained unbroken for half a century:
“I know what it takes for a company to function well, or for works to sound truly great. We’re full of challenges and troubles, but these fifty years have not worn me down. I consider it my good fortune that I can devote myself to masterpieces. That overrides every difficulty. Amid everyday conflicts, I keep reminding myself: I am grateful to be able to devote myself to the wonder of the world.”
[2024]