User:Attila Dobak/Attila Dobák

Attila Dobák (born 30 January 1985 in Budapest, Hungary) is an operatic bass-baritone.

Career
In opera roles he appeared first in 2013 at the Opera North as Gideon March in Little Women, Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor and Emil de Becque in South Pacific. In 2014 he sang Figaro in Mozart's La Nozze di Figaro at the Miami Summer Music Festival, when he appeared on NBC singing Figaro's aria, "Non più andrai" accompanied by the Miami Summer Music Festival Orchestra. He spent much of the 2015-2016 season with the Boston Lyric Opera, participating in productions of Puccini's La Bohème, Bizet's Carmen under the baton of David Angus and Lehar's The Merry Widow conducted by Alexander Joel.

He made his debuts at the Hungarian State Opera during the season 2017-2018, as Schaunard in La Bohème, as Haly in L’italiana in Algeri, as Pietro in Simon Boccanegra, as First Nazarene in Salome and as Cillei Ulrik in Hunyadi László. He has sung the title role of Háry János in Kodály's Háry János at the MÜPA Budapest during the Budapest Spring Festival in 2017. He returned to Opera North in 2018 to sing Crespel in Les contes d’Hoffmann and Bartolo in Il barbiere di Siviglia.

As a member of the Hungarian State Opera, he has sung Schaunard in La Bohème, Paul in Les Enfants Terribles, Geisterbote in Die Frau ohne Schatten and Haly in L’italiana in Algeri during the season 2019-2020. In this year he has featured the roles of Winter/Sleep/Coridon/Hymen in Fairy Queen with the company and he has appeared as Moralès in Carmen directed by Calixto Bieito. He sang the role of Alessio (February 2021) in the production of La Sonnambula at MÜPA Budapest conducted by Ricardo Frizza, with Mirco Palazzi and Zuzana Marková in the title role.

His operatic repertoire includes a wide range of musical styles from early baroque to contemporary music but mainly includes 18th and 19th century opera: from masterpieces by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, to the modern repertoire of Verdi, Puccini and Britten. He succeeded in several Hungarian and international singing competitions and he has sung under the baton of renowned Hungarian and foreign conductors such as Ricardo Frizza, Anthony Barrese, Balázs Kocsár, János Kovács, Francesco Lanzilotta, Gergely Kesselyák, Alexander Joel etc.

Biography
Attila Dobák grew up in Budapest (Hungary), where he began his musical studies by playing clarinet at the age of seven and was twelve when he took his first piano lesson. He was inspired to study singing after watching the 3 Tenors Concert with Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo. He started studying classical singing at age sixteen, taking lessons from Josef Sass chorus master – the father of Sylvia Sass Hungarian operatic soprano. He was accepted into the Béla Bartók Conservatory of Music in Budapest, where he majored in Opera and Vocal Performance. At the same time, he attended the Corvinus University of Budapest where he graduated with a master's degree in Marketing & Communications in 2009. But his artistic roots proved strong, science was replaced by music in his life.

In 2010 he was invited to Lecce (Italy) by maestro Mario Canana, who gave him the opportuntiy to focuse on opera singing and stage performance at his private school, the institution of L'associazione Il Bel Canto. In 2011 he went to the United States to pursue opera studies at the Longy School of Music of Bard College (USA) where operatic baritone Robert Honeysucker was his professor and studied stage movement and acting with Donna Roll. He graduated in 2013 at the Department of Vocal and Opera Studies. Over the years he has taken part in several master classes held by Sherrill Milnes, Wolfgang Brendel and Éva Marton.

Although, mainly raised on classical music, he has a great passion to perform in classical and mixed genres too. The idea of making his mark both as an opera singer and a classical - crossover artist has led him to the Berklee College of Music (USA) which he has also attended. Similar to other classical performers such as Mario Lanza, Placido Domingo or Andrea Bocelli, he is also making musical endeavors in a wide variety of popular music forms.