Producer Tibor Rudas

Tibor Rudas
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Tibor Rudas is a Hungarian producer whose most notable accomplishment was the conceptualization of The Three Tenors concerts, with Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti.
Rudas was born in Budapest, and at the age of eight, was singing boy soprano for the Budapest State Opera. Years later, in Australia, he established a dance studio and began producing French-style revues. By 1963, he was invited to the United States, where in Las Vegas such revues were flourishing. There, his own style of choreography and production gained him and his troupe, known as the Rudas Acro-Dancers, international acclaim; groups of these dancers later began touring all over the globe.
In 1976, Tibor Rudas was commissioned to build and run a theater for the first casino in Atlantic City -- the Resorts International Superstar Theater. Many great artists performed there, such as Cher, Bill Cosby, Jackie Gleason, Liberace, Dolly Parton, Diana Ross, and Frank Sinatra. After three years of successful operation, he decided to return to his original calling -- classical music -- and in an unusual move, introduced The New York Philharmonic as the first classical artists to perform in a casino showroom. Later, performances by distinguished artists such as Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman, Dame Joan Sutherland, the Academy of St.Martin-in-the-Fields, and the New York City Opera National Company followed, in casinos as well as in traditional concert halls.
In 1983, Tibor Rudas presented Luciano Pavarotti in concert for the first time. Because the Maestro had reservations about performing in a casino, Rudas went to the extent of constructing a special tent for the performance; the concert was a spectacular success and as a result he gave up his position at Resorts International to produce Mr. Pavarotti’s concerts throughout the world. The two worked together for over twenty years, for a total of over 200 concerts in such venues as Madison Square Garden, the Hollywood Bowl, Wembley Arena, Tokyo’s Budokan, and Sydney Superdome, among countless others, on virtually every continent. Rudas has also presented ambitious events within specially-built outdoor venues in Hyde Park, attracting 200,000 Londoners as well as the Prince and Princess of Wales on a soaking-wet day in 1991; in Buenos Aires, for 300,000 in 1992; in Central Park, for 500,000 New Yorkers in 1993; and the Mayan Ruins at Chichén Itzá in 1997, among others.
Perhaps Mr. Rudas' greatest achievement in taking opera to wider audiences was the 3 Tenors concerts. In 1994, Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti, along with conductor Zubin Mehta, captivated 56,000 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles – as well as approximately 1.3 billion television viewers in more than 100 countries -- in what was the most-watched worldwide musical event in history. Audio and video recordings were released in record time, going platinum within a week of release.
Continuing his success with the legendary trio, Tibor Rudas produced The 3 Tenors World Tour 1996-97, under the musical direction of Metropolitan Opera Artistic Director James Levine, live in ten cultural capitals around the world, including Tokyo, London, Vienna, New York, Gothenburg, Munich, Duesseldorf, Melbourne, Modena, and Barcelona. In 1998, the Tenors sang an outdoor concert before the Eiffel Tower for 150,000 Parisians and over a billion television viewers, in a performance that became their release Carreras Domingo Pavarotti with Levine: Paris 1998.
Rudas continued to produce Pavarotti and 3 Tenors concerts until 2003.