Bence Varga graduated from the drama department of the Mihály Vörösmarty Grammar School in Budapest in 2010. In the following years, he worked as a creative artist at, among others, the Kolibri Theatre, the Merlin Theatre, and the Trafó House of Contemporary Arts. In 2012, he was admitted to the theatre directing department of the University of Arts at Târgu Mureș, in the class of László Bocsárdi, where he got acquainted with the form and language of poetic theatre.
In 2014, he successfully applied for the musical theatre directing programme at the University of Theatre and Film Arts. He attended the class of Tamás Ascher – György Selmeczi – Eszter Novák, where the primary focus of his studies was psychological realism. During his university years, as part of the German Late Night production of the OPERA, he staged the operas Sancta Susanna and Hin und Zurück by Hindemith in the Kiscell ruined church as part of an internship. In 2019, he became Miklós Szinetár's teaching assistant at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, where he currently teaches stage practice.
After obtaining his diploma, he directed contemporary opera and Mozart at the Budapest Music Center, commedia dell'arte set to music at the Szentendre Open Air Theatre, and prose at the Stúdió K Theatre. Together with András Almási-Tóth, he worked on Bernstein's opera Trouble in Tahiti in the Solti Hall of the Academy of Music, then staged Puccini's Suor Angelica in the Great Hall. In 2023, he took part in the international Crescendo Summer Academy for the second time as a teacher and a director. In 2021-22, he staged the one acts Tante Simona by Ernő Dohnányi and Le luthier de Crémone by Jenő Hubay at the Eiffel Art Studios, where his following production is the world premiere of Valuska, an opera by Péter Eötvös.
Photo: Károly Ascher
