Balázs Hantos was born in Budapest in 1944 and graduated from the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in 1970 after studying under József Réti. Between 1970 and 1973, he studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. After a season as a soloist with Staatstheater Kassel in 1973/74, he joined the Hungarian State Opera in 1974, again as a soloist. Over the course of the past decades, he has sung most of the character bass roles in the opera literature, with his most important portrayals including ones of the Village Field Guard (John the Valiant), the Naval Captain (Manon Lescaut), Talpa (Il tabarro), Sparafucile (Rigoletto), the Marquis of Calatrava (La forza del destino), the King of Egypt (Aida), Pistol (Falstaff), Fafner (Das Rheingold, Siegfried) and Hunding (Die Walküre).
