Since graduating from the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest, the bass-baritone Gábor Bretz has regularly appeared at the Hungarian State Opera, in roles including the title role of Mefistofele, Mozart’s Figaro, Don Giovanni and Leporello, Basilio (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Banco (Macbeth), Zaccaria (Nabucco), Fiesco (Simon Boccanegra), Colline (La bohème), Escamillo (Carmen), Gurnemanz (Parsifal), Pogner (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Orest (Elektra) and Marcel (Les Huguenots). He has sung Landgrave Hermann (Tannhäuser) at the Budapest Wagner Days under Adam Fischer and at Müpa.
Gábor Bretz made his Salzburg Festival debut in 2018 as Jokanaan (Salome). Highlights of recent seasons have included Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte) and the four villains (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) at La Monnaie in Brussels, King Heinrich (Lohengrin) and Verdi’s Requiem at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Escamillo and Philip II (Don Carlos) at the Hamburg State Opera, Gurnemanz with the Hallé Orchestra, the title role in Massenet’s Don Quichotte at the Bregenz Festival, Pizarro (Fidelio) at the Opéra Comique in Paris and at the Theater an der Wien, where he has also sung Scarpia (Tosca), and Jokanaan at the 2022 Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. Future engagements will include Wotan in Der Ring des Nibelungen in Brussels.
Other important engagements in his career to date include the title role in Der fliegende Holländer at the Passionstheater in Oberammergau, Ferrando (Il trovatore) and Colline at Covent Garden, Escamillo at the Bavarian State Opera, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera and the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Shaklovity (Khovanshchina) at the Dutch National Opera, a staged version of Verdi’s Requiem in Hamburg, Scarpia in Bologna and King Heinrich in Brussels. He has also sung Bluebeard in numerous performances of Bluebeard’s Castle, including with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and under conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel, Adam Fischer, Edward Gardner, Daniele Gatti, Valery Gergiev, Daniel Harding, Michele Mariotti and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Other outstanding conductors with whom he has worked include Alain Altinoglu, Philippe Jordan, Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Franz Welser-Möst, Juraj Valčuha and Omer Meir Wellber. In addition to his opera appearances, Gábor Bretz performs regularly in concert.
