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The Hungarian bass, Kolos Kováts (Kovacz), studied at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest, where his main teacher was Mrs. Ferenc Révhegyi.
In 1970 Kolos Kováts was immediately engaged at the National Opera of Budapest, where his debut role was Pater Guardian in Verdi’s La forza del destino, and his first big successes were in the opera Hamlet by the contemporary Hungarian composer Sándor Szokolay and in Monteverdi’s Incoronazione di Poppea". He was winner at the Competition of Rio de Janeiro (1973) and at the Moscow Tchaikovsy Concurs (1974).
In 1971 Kolos Kováts was well-appreciated in Budapest as Sarastro in Zauberflöte and as Gremin in Eugen Onegin, in 1984 as Dosifey in Mussorgsky’s Khovantchina. Appearances at the Opera of Rome, in Rio de Janeiro and in Prague, at the Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre and at the Vienna State Opera, in Helsinki, in Graz and Cairo, at the Opera House of Leipzig as well as at stages in West Germany followed. He also appeared as a guest at Milan’s La Scala and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He sang Sarastro in 1978 at the Festival of Glyndebourne. In 1987 he appeared in Brussels as Zaccaria in Verdi’s Nabucco, in 1993 at the Opera House of Leipzig as Pimen in Boris Godunov. His other important roles on the stage were Komtur in Don Giovanni, Mephisto in Faust by Charles Gounod, Colline in Puccini’s La Bohème and Titelheld in Blue-Beard Castle by Béla Bartók. He had also a successful career as concert and oratorio singer.
Kolos Kováts’ family name appears in writing also as Kovacz. His powerful nearly inexhaustible bass voice can be heard particularly on Hungarian Qualiton and Hungaroton labels (Medea by Cherubini, Ernani, Macbeth and I Lombardi by Verdi, Legende von der hl. Elisabeth by F. Liszt, solo recording of Verdi arias), also on Capriccio (9th Symphony of L.v. Beethoven), Harmonia Mundi. |
