Csaba Káel


Csaba Káel is a Hungarian film director and CEO of Müpa Budapest. He was awarded the Kossuth Prize in 2020 and the Kálmán Nádasdy Prize in 2013.

Career

Káel earned a degree in structural and architectural engineering in 1986 from the Technical University of Budapest's Department of Structural Engineering. In 1989, he graduated from Budapest's College of Theatre and Film Arts, where he studied film and television directing under teachers Károly Makk, István Szabó, Gyula Gazdag, Elemér Ragályi and György Illés.
After serving as a manager at the Balázs Béla Film Studio from 1989 and 1990, he went on to work at Novofilm Kft between 1990 and 1993. In 1990, he took part in the East-West Producers Seminar in London under the tutelage of Lynda Myles and David Puttnam. In 1990, he founded the Happy End Advertising Agency, later becoming its creative director. A member of the Association of Independent Hungarian Producers from 1995 to 1998, he became founder and executive director of Z+ Hungarian Music Television. In 2001 and 2002, he served as artistic advisor for the Millenéris Theatre and Television Studio, where he developed the core concept for that institution. Starting in 2002, he spent two years back at the University of Theatre and Film Arts working on his DLA before joining Müpa Budapest in 2005 as an artistic advisor responsible for putting together the institution's opera programmes. Following a stint at the Novus School of Art from 2006 to 2007, he has been teaching at the Werk Academy since 2008. He has been the CEO of Müpa Budapest since 17 March 2011, and on 15 August 2013 was appointed chairman of the body that runs both the Budapest Spring Festival and the CAFe Budapest Contemporary Arts Festival. Káel has been a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts since 2014

Filmography

His creative works have been screened and performed at events in the following cities and towns: Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Palm Springs, Portland, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. ; Palić ; Jerusalem ; Singapore; Łódź ; Calcutta, Mumbai, Madras, Pune, Trivandrum ; Istanbul ; Dhaka ; Barcelona ; Lima ; Tokyo

Prosaic and musical theatre works

Káel has worked with such artists as José Cura, Leo Nucci, Éva Marton, Ruggerio Raimondi, Renato Bruson, Erika Miklósa, Andrea Rost, Roberto Scandiuzzi, Joseph Calleja, Giuseppe Sabbatini, Ildiko Komlósi, Michaela Kaune, Elena Mosuc, Roberto Saccà, Marcello Giordani, Kurt Rydl, Ramón Vargas, Yevgeny Nesterenko, Pier Giorgio Morandi, Deborah Voigt, Christoph Eschenbach, Ferruccio Furlanetto. He has staged several pre-classical operas in productions by the Purcell Chorus and Orfeo Orchestra conducted by György Vashegyi, including Monteverdi's L’Orfeo, the inaugural performance at Müpa Budapest's Festival Theatre.

Events and other works