Aleš Valič created more than 160 roles on stage alone. Photo: they are
Borštnikov’s ring to Aleš Valič
At the closing ceremony of this year’s festival Borštnik’s meeting, which will take place on June 21 at SNG Maribor, actor Aleš Valič, one of the central protagonists of Slovenian theater in recent decades, also known for numerous film and television roles, will wear the Borštnikov ring, our highest award for an actor’s artistic opus.
As the jury for the awarding of Borštnik’s ring justified, Aleš Valič receives the central Slovenian acting award for “an outstanding acting opus, which for several decades has significantly marked the Slovenian theater space, as well as radio, film, television and the pedagogical field”, since “with his artistic integrity, exceptional breadth of expression and recognizable acting poetics, he created one of the most extensive and diverse acting paths of his generation”.
They also added that Valič is an actor of marked internal discipline, precise thinking and exceptional sensitivity to language. “His interpretations are characterized by psychological depth, an organic connection between speech and physical expression, and the ability to create complex dramatic characters with seemingly restrained but extremely intense acting means,” they explained.
Roles that defined eras
Aleš Valič (1955) studied drama and artistic expression at the AGRFT in Ljubljana, which he finished in 1977, and graduated in artistic expression in 1979. He began his professional career at the Slovenian Permanent Theater in Trieste, where he stayed for two seasons, and then became one of the key actors of the Ljubljana Drama, where he worked until 2004; during this period he created a long series of outstanding roles from the classical and contemporary repertoire and established himself as one of the central protagonists of Slovenian theatre. A special place in his work is also occupied by the collaboration with Drama SNG Maribor, where after 2004 he created a multitude of roles that significantly marked the artistic image of this house.
A very prominent part of his artistic identity is also his work on radio, film and television, where he created many recognizable roles; his distinct speech culture, musicality of language and ability to subtly shape characters have left their mark on numerous radio plays, television dramas and film projects. Along with his theater work, he also established an important creative space of monodrama, in which his concentration as an actor and his ability to make direct, almost intimate contact with the audience were especially clearly expressed.
His work has already been awarded several times with the most important Slovenian theater awards: he received several Borštnik awards for acting, the Prešeren Foundation award (1984) and the Stanet Sever Foundation award, and his acting creations were also recognized at comedy and monodrama festivals. Aleš Valič also left an extraordinary mark as a pedagogue, because as a long-time professor, head of the department of artistic speech at AGRFT, former dean of the academy and vice-rector of the University of Ljubljana, he had a significant impact on the development of many generations of actors and actresses.
