Dušan Rapoš, also known by the name Sui Generis (of its own kind), or SG, was born in 1953 in Moravany in the Eastern Slovakia. In 1982 he graduated from the Television and Film Document Department of the University of Beaux Arts. In 2000 he married in Las Vegas a popular Czech actress and poet Eva Vejmělková, and they have two daughters, Tara and Rita. He lives in Havířov in Moravia and in Bratislava alternately. He works often for various foreign production companies as artist and producer.
He is known to the European cultural public first of all as a director and screenwriter popular among spectators. His movies, among which we would like to remind at least the names like the False Prince (1984), A Fountain for Susan 1 (1985), 2 (1993) and 3 (1999), Rabaka (1989), Let's run away, he is coming! (1986), A Well of Youth (1987), Dido (1988), F.T. (1990), Karel Kryl - who am I...? (1994) and Suzanne (1996), were seen by millions of spectators not only in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic but also abroad.
He is also the winner of a lot of important prizes, mostly foreign ones. His latest movie to date, a family music comedy A Fountain for Susan 3, has won the highest prizes in the international film festivals in Atlanta and Philadelphia. The juries of both festivals valued highly not only the artistic and workmanship of the work, but also its significant anti-racist idea and international appeal for love, understanding and tolerance towards people of different colors.
As a stage director, dramatist and composer, he endorsed a successful monodrama, Maria, which was on the stage of the Teátro Bratislava several seasons and which was accepted with enthusiasm also by the demanding Parisian audience.
It is less known, however, that the original profession of Dušan Rapoš was composer and that he is the author of dozens of soundtracks and incidental music, composed mostly for German, Austrian, Swiss, but also Slovak and Czech film, TV and stage productions. The authentic Slovak and American ballet The Children of the Titanic was his first musical and dramatic feature, created in cooperation with the famous choreographer Christopher d'Amboise from New York for the Ballet of the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava. After the roaring spectatorial success of the film Suzanne, the ballet The Children of the Titanic was his second important artistic and citizen's utterance concerning the worldwide fight of mankind against the drug addiction of adolescents.
Also his non-commercial CDs Tenderness (1993), Angels of Sin (1996), Children of the Titanic (1996), Love Songs (2002), The Best of Dušan Rapoš 2000, The Best of Dušan Rapoš 2005, the CD-Single Amore Vittoria and the LP The Little Mouse in a Violin Case, recorded by the top European symphony ensembles and conductors, are of high artistic quality.
By the end of March 2002, the Orchestra of the Slovak Philharmonic and the Slovak Philharmonic Choir introduced in the Reduta concert hall an Easter festive concert Amore Vittoria, which was the anthology of Pietro e Lucia, the latest musical and dramatic work of Rapoš. The opera and ballet drama Pietro e Lucia, which calls mankind to bring to life the God of Goodness inside the people, was written and composed by Dušan Rapoš on the motif of the famous novel Pierre et Luce by the French writer Romain Rolland. The text of the arias was written by the wife of Rapoš, the actress Eva Vejmělková, who introduced herself to the artistic public as a poet. The concert Amore Vittoria, introduced in close cooperation with the Embassy of the United States of America in Bratislava, was devoted to the innocent victims of terrorist attacks in New York. The arias and ballet parts were presented by the leading soloist of the Opera of the Slovak National Theater in Bratislava and the piano virtuoso, currently also the Director of the Slovak Philharmonic, Marián Lapšanský. The concert was conducted by a renowned American conductor Larry Newland from New York. The audience rewarded Dušan Rapoš and all co-authors and performers with a persistent standing ovation. Also the TV record of the concert broadcast by Slovak Television on Easter Sunday was met with a large, positive response by watchers.
On Christmas 2003 a DVD with the musical film Rabaka was launched on the market. Rapoš made this movie from the script of Boris Filan. The movie "about the fellowship of nuts, who live on rock", in the performed stylized form shows the hard times of musicians, members of nowadays legendary Slovak rock group Elán, starting their career during the times of totalitarian communist regime.
On Christmas 2004 the long-waited Rapoš's DVD was finally released, Karel Kryl - who am I...?, in which Karel Kryl, the famous Czechoslovak poet, philosopher, songster and a long-time fighter against the communism put through his songs, poems and dialogues with us one of the basic questions of mankind's existence.
In March 2005 the DVD was released with the anti-drug movie of Rapoš, called Suzanne. The story of love of two addicts "about the fall into the bottomless abyss", is a memento, that the individual addicted to drugs is able to sacrifice even the love of the dearest person "for the love of drugs". And not only love...
In June 2005 it was a ceremony for the debut of the new 2CD The Best of Dusan Rapos 2005, which is an anthology of his film, ballet and opera music of the last 25 years. Peter Dvorský, the famous tenor, and Chantal Poulain, the actress, were the patrons of the 2CD.
The fans of Rapoš's films will surely be delighted that other films also are supposed to be released on DVDs in the next future, like the cult musical trilogy A Fountain for Susan, a tragicomedy "about how much pain must you engender until you lose everything..." Let's run away, he is coming...! and the musical film F.T. en route, with the top Slovak and Czech singers and rock groups.
Currently Dušan Rapoš works as a composer on his new opera fantasy Aaaa... Andy about the life of pop-art founder Andy Warhol, the parents of who are of Slovak origin. The libretto was written by the long-time biographer of Warhol and the friend of Rapoš, Ivan Stadtrucker, his former favorite professor at the University of Beaux Arts. Ján Bajánek, the poet and translator, is the author of English lyrics of the arias. The world premiere of the work is assumed in New York in 2011. At the same time he works as a composer and producer of an exclusive CD of Peter Dvorský and his friends, where the famous world tenor accompanied by the Sui Generis Symphony Orchestra studio orchestra, the Prague Philharmonic Choir and the Motorband hard-rock band shall introduce himself in the rock and symphony duets with the Slovak and Czech opera and rock stars. The Amore Vittoria, the pilot single of this CD was very successful abroad, mainly in England, and last year it was nominated for the 2007 Crystal Wing Award in the category of music. In April 2007 he produced the Legends 60, a live concert of the Slovak beat stage of sixties in Bratislava at the suggestion of Dodo Šuhajda, the former front man of The Buttons group. At the end of March he completed for the Czech TV in Ostrava the direction of a documentary film about the life of Moravians and Slovaks titled Na pomezí (On the Borderland) from the Náš venkov (Our Countryside) series by the story of Jaromír Šlosar. From October to December 2007 the Slovak TV broadcasted the Rapoš's 10 episode TV documentary series Slovenský bigbít (The Slovak Big Beat) about the Slovak rock legends of sixties on the script by Ľuboš Jurík and Dodo Šuhajda. In 2008 the Slovart released the series and the concert on a 3DVD within the homonymous book. Ľuboš Jurík, Dušan Rapoš and Dodo Šuhajda, the authors of the project, were awarded the 2008 Crystal Wing.
In October 2008 it was the opening night of his feature film Cinka Panna about a famous Romany female violinist, who opposed her fate. He made the film in the production of the Attack company, on the script by Ľubomír Slivka with Ján Ďuriš, as the director of photography. Katarína Vanžurová was the executive producer of the movie. The very first week after its presentation in the Slovak movie theatres Cinka Panna became number one in attendance. Cinka Panna was awarded the Golden Palm „za mimoriadny umelecký počin v kinematografii".
Dušan Rapoš together with Kamil Peteraj, the poet, and Tomáš Roller, the graphic artist, created a multimedia 3D world of crazy moblies CMC - Crazy Mobile Community.
Nowadays he prepares, as a producer and director, in cooperation with the Martin Production agency the world premiere of the Viva Afrika stage musical by his A Fountain for Suzan 3 cult film trilogy.
As a composer and executive producer as well he prepares for the MJ Advisory, s.r.o. company learning and then international tour of Pietro e Lucia, his anti-war open air rock-symphony opera, that would start by its world premiere in Prague on December 2, 2010, later on by the Slovak premiere in Košice on December 9, 2010 and then it will continue in Russia, Germany, Italy, France, England, Japan, USA, Canada and South America. Mr. Ján Majerský, the General Director of PROMA, s.r.o., member of the Slovak and Russian industrial group, is the major producer of the project.
Dušan Rapoš - "artist of its own kind" - belongs among the most commercially successful Czechoslovak directors. As a composer he inclines toward the Italian music school. Rapoš has composed music for dozens of acting and documentary films, as well as for commercials and experimental films. He is the author of ballet and opera music. After the completion of the opera fantasy "Aaaa... Andy" the world premiere of which is supposed to be in New York in 2011, and after finishing the script of the Slovak-Czech-Russian film the Architectress, he would like to start with the movies Hugo, Salto Mortale and the Concert for Two Violins. And in his "retirement" he just finally might have time to write his first symphony. Rapoš solidly commands several artistic languages simultaneously and thus the borders between the genres are foreign to him. It is his ideal that the work shall determine its artistic form itself depending on what it wants to say to the audience.