Jozef Bednárik
Director
Jozef Bednárik studied acting at the College of Musical Arts in Bratislava. After working for ten years as an actor in the Theatre of Andrej Bagár in Nitra, he became the director of the amateur Z theatre (Don Juan, Kulička, Mother Courage) and later a professional director in the Nitra theatre. There he brought more than thirty titles into production. Besides directing work in his own country, he has also participated in many foreign festivals. At the festival in Edinburgh he won the critics‘ prize for the best musical production – for Gound’s Faust and Markétka with the opera of the Slovak National Theatre. In 1990 he moved to Bratislava, where he became of the director of the New Scene, which introduced a quartet of musical titles under his direction, including A. Lloyd Webber‘s Joseph…, Grandhotel, and Blood Brothers. During the same period he regularly worked with operatic theatres. Visitors to the Prague National Theatre know his production of Gound’s opera Roméo et Juliette, which was twice awarded the so-called Libuška for the most interesting opera production at the festival of musical theatre. Bednárik has worked with many other theatres, including the Chamber Opera in Bratislava, the Slovak National Theatre, and the State Opera in Prague, particularly in the area of opera productions. For many years now, musical lovers have been visiting Bednárik’s production of the Czech musical Dracula, which after its premiere in Prague was taken on the road to Bratislava, Prešov, Seoul, and Moscow. With the same team for whom he produced Dracula, he also got together for the Monte Cristo project, which was brought to the public in 2000. In Slovakia a similarly favorable audience enjoyed his direction of the musical Sweet Charity and the musical adaptation of Dickens‘ Oliver Twist (Oliver). At the end of 1998 he prepared The Fiddler on the Roof in the Šumařa theatre and in the begining of 1999 the new Prague Theatre Milénium brought the musical Rusalka into production under his direction. For the theatre Ta Fantastika he learned the parts of the musicals Johanka z Arku and Elixír života and for the Divadlo Broadway theatre, he learned the musical Angelika. The most significant musical titles directed by Mr. Bednárik were Manon Lescaut in Prague (2007) and Šumař na střeše (Fiddler on the Roof) in Bratislava. In the year 2009 there was in the Hybernia Theatre realized the renewed premiere of the musical Dracula in his direction. Josef Bednárik died 22nd August 2013.
