Attila Vidnyánszky, director of the Kossuth and Mari Jászai awards, will be the general director of the National Theater on March 8.

Attila Vidnyánszky was born on March 8, 1964 in Berehove, Ukraine. In 1985, he graduated from the Faculty of Humanities of Ungvár State University, majoring in Hungarian language and literature, and in 1992, he obtained a directing degree from the Kyiv Academy of Dramatic Arts.

In 1993, he founded the Illyés Gyula Hungarian National Theater in Beregszász, of which he is still the chief director.

From 2004 he worked as the chief director of the Hungarian State Opera, from 2006 he was the artistic director of the Csokonai Theater in Debrecen, from 2007 he was director-director, and in 2008 he was the founding president of the Hungarian Theater Society.

He was appointed general director of the National Theater on December 17, 2012, effective July 1, 2013, and his mandate was extended in 2018 and 2023.

In 2014, he founded the MITEM festival of the National Theatre. On November 13, 2023, he resigned from the position of general director of the National Theater because two members of the troupe suffered a serious accident during a performance three days earlier. After the internal investigation concluded on December 20 that no one was solely responsible for the accident, he withdrew his resignation, which was accepted by the Minister of Culture and Innovation, János Csák.

From 2011, Attila Vidnyánszky was a titular university professor at Kaposvár University, between 2013 and 2020 he was deputy rector of art, and between 2012 and 2017 he was the head teacher of the acting department. From 2020, he is the rector's representative of the Rippl-Rónai Faculty of Arts of Szent István University and the chairman of the board of trustees of the foundation that maintains the University of Theater and Film (SZFE), head teacher at SZFE. From 2023, he was a member of the International Committee of the Theater Olympiad and the artistic director of the 2023 Budapest Theater Olympiad.

During his career, he directed in more than twenty theaters,

among others, he staged plays in the National Academic Theater (Leszja Ukrajinka Theater) in Kyiv, the Aleksandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, the National Theater in Budapest, the Hungarian Theater in Pest, the New Theater, the Hungarian State Opera House, Slovakia, Serbia, and Croatia.

In the course of his work, he created a special stage language that was in opposition to the naturalist-realist theater traditions and the aesthetics of the bourgeois theater, which he defines with the term "poetic theater".

He staged such plays as A Midsummer Night's Dream (1994), The Tragedy of Man (1998), Bánk bán (2002), A Boy Turned into a Deer (2003), Turandot (2009), János Háry (2011), Liliomfi (2013), Isten's whip (2014), Don Quixote (2015), Rocco és fivérei (2019) or the dramatized version of the Hobó Vadaszat album. The National Theater currently has many of his productions on show. In 2007, he directed a film entitled Liberté '56. In 2015, he received the award for best direction at the 15th Los Angeles Hungarian Film Festival for the film version of The Boy Who Turned into a Deer.

His work has been awarded with numerous awards. Among other things, in 1997 he won the director's prize of the Toruń festival, in 2000 he was recognized as a worthy artist of Ukraine. In 2002, he received the Jászai Mari Award, then the Budapest Theater Award, in 2004 the Theater Critic Award, and in 2006 the Hungarian Art Award. In 2005, he was awarded the Silver Cross of Merit of the Hungarian Republic. He has been a member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts since 2005, in 2006 he was awarded the Kálmán Nádasdy Prize, and in 2009 he received the Russian Mejerhold Prize. In 2011, he was awarded the Kossuth Prize for his work nurturing the noblest traditions of Hungarian theater, focusing on poetry, building a company, creating a school, and for his memorable and deservedly popular productions. In 2013, he received the Pro Urbe award of the city of Debrecen, in 2015 the Madách award, and in 2016 the Sándor Hevesi award. In 2018, he became an honorary citizen of Beregszász. In 2019, he was awarded the Hungarian Heritage Award, and in 2023, the Áron Tamási Award.

His son Attila Vidnyánszky Jr. followed in his father's footsteps, becoming an actor and director.

MTI

Featured image: Attila Vidnyánszky, general manager of the National Theater (Photo: MTI/Zsolt Szigetváry)