1 First of All THE AROUND THE RING SEASON The Hungarian State Opera s / season will get off to an unusual start, since the Opera House will not be opening its doors in September. The modernisation means that the season will start at the Erkel Theatre, and while there will be fewer programmes than usual, their diversity will match that of previous years: In this season inspired by Wagner s Ring cycle, there will be 2 opera and ballet premieres, along with countless repertoire pieces, musicals, grand operettas, concerts, concert-format productions and family and children s programmes. We ll also be using other venues for our performances until 24 May, the centenary of Bluebeard s Castle, when the castle on Andrássy Avenue, equipped with 21st century technology and restored to its former glory, opens its doors to welcome both you and Bartók.
FIRST OF ALL PREMIERES 1 In September, the grand events of the Season Opener will kick off with the obligatory outdoor commedia dell arte chamber operas being performed in front of the Opera House. And while the first premiere of the season will be screened live on Andrássy Avenue as usual, this year it will be coming from the Erkel Theatre. Both the indoor and outdoor audiences will get to see Attila Vidnyánszky s new production of Bánk bán conducted by Chief Music Director Balázs Kocsár and very unusually with a baritone lead. The Ring theme is not just about the Ring cycle itself. It also presents the precursors and impact of Wagner s genius. Featured will be dramatic works some staged, some concert-format by Bach, Gluck, Weber, Beethoven, Schubert, Spontini, Lortzing, Marschner, Humperdinck, Wolf, Korngold and Richard Strauss: a sort of spiritual Valhalla of pan-germanic culture. As the audience has already come to expect, we will be premiering several works that have never been performed at the Opera, or anywhere in Hungary for that matter. These include the new experience of Hindemith s two works Sancta Susanna and The Long Christmas Dinner to be featured in the GermanLateNight programme. Rossini s comic opera L italiana in Algeri, Bach s Secular Cantatas and Offenbach s Die Rheinnixen have likewise never been shown here. And aside from the world premiere of the pasticcio of Mozart s L oca del Cairo, the audience will also get to see a great many contemporary works, including The Tóth Family, based on the play by István Örkény. In the spirit of updating the repertoire, some works that haven t been seen for a long time will also be freshened up. These include Gershwin s masterpiece Porgy and Bess, in a new production by András Almási-Tóth, and Verdi s Un ballo in maschera, being staged by the young Italian director Fabio Ceresa. Children will get to enjoy the new Hänsel und Gretel being produced by another young international director: Rafael R. Villalobos. Reaching its conclusion with the completion of Götterdämmerung, the final work of Wagner s gigantic tetralogy, will be Géza M. Tóth s labour of four years. This also allows us to present the audience with the experience of the entire Ring cycle in the autumn of.
At any given time while the Opera House is being renovated, a portion of the company will be on the road. The Hungarian National Ballet will at last get to captivate the Müpa Budapest audience, among others, with its contemporary dance works. The Béla Bartók National Concert Hall will also be hosting opera, with concert-format performances of three large-scale works: Otello, Die Frau ohne Schatten and Turandot. We would never be able to journey so far in such numbers, with this much luggage except when the Opera House is closed. With the Carpathian Homeland Opera Tour, we will be bringing our national opera Hunyadi László and Ronald Hynd s ballet The Merry Widow, premiered at the Erkel Theatre a few years back, all over the lands of historical Hungary. We ll also put on a stylish Salome in Jordan and pack an entire arsenal of ballets and operas for the enjoyment of the Estonian audience. Two classics Lucia di Lammermoor and Die Fledermaus have been invited to visit Japan, accompanied by Edit Gruberová. Our orchestra will also be giving symphonic concerts in different Japanese cities, in addition to accompanying Anna Netrebko at Waldbühne Berlin and heading off on a trip around the world with Plácido Domingo s touring Aida. Vidnyánszky Bánk bán Delnon Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci Szirtes Billy Elliot the Musical Anger Die Rheinnixen, Il trittico, La traviata, Dialogues des Carmélites Ceresa Un ballo in maschera Holten Bluebeard s Castle Almási-Tóth Porgy és Bess, A telefon Máté Szabó L italiani in Algeri Villalobos Hänsel und Gretel Káel The Gold and the Woman, The Tóth Family M. Tóth Götterdämmerung Znaniecki The Spinning Room Szinetár The Gypsy Baron, Così fan tutte, Die Zauberflöte, Rigoletto Stefanutti Simon Boccanegra Szikora Les Huguenots
We organise many of the season s events around one anniversary or another. We will pay tribute to the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in autumn with concert-format performances of Verdi s Requiem and Stiffelio, as well as a new production of a work that has not played in Hungary for a long time: Meyerbeer s Les Huguenots, staged by János Szikora. In May, both the company and the audience will once again take possession of the Opera House with a four-day Bluebeard100 Mini- Festival, with a different production of Bartók s one-act presented each day (including the original Miklós Bánffy version and a new one by Kasper Holten), each paired with a different work by Péter Eötvös, Iván Madarász or Gergely Vajda. We will also have anniversary events to remember László Seregi and Miklós Ybl, and will also salute Gyöngyi Lukács to mark the 30th year of her career. Our popular introductory programmes the Tuning Series and Questions, Questions as well as the Christmas Nutcracker Festival, the Choral Artists Mini- Festival will also be included in the schedule for the new season, and theatres from around Hungary will be bringing their new productions for the sixth time to the Primavera festival. Molnár Domingo Alagna Nucci Netrebko Miklósa Vargas FIRST OF ALL international stars Bretz Komlósi Rojas Gruberová Rost Chacón-Cruz The Opera s performances and gala concerts will bring to the stage in addition to our internationally renowned performers like Gábor Bretz, Mária Celeng, Ildikó Komlósi, Erika Miklósa, Levente Molnár and Andrea Rost around 1 Hungarian artists. And once again this season, opera fans will get to welcome a host of soloists from abroad. Arturo Chacón-Cruz, Kamen Chanev, Marcello Giordani, Stuart Neill, Leo Nucci, Johan Reuter, Rafael Rojas, Gerhard Siegel, Tómas Tómasson and Ramón Vargas are all already familiar to the Hungarian audience. The Erkel Theatre will get to host Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov for the first time, in a concert-format performance of Andrea Chénier, while Aleksandrs Antonenko will come to sing Otello. Gracing the annual total art gala event will be Roberto Alagna and Alexandra Kurzak and, on his 77th birday, no lesser figure than Plácido Domingo himself will be donning the costume of Simon Boccanegra.
The Opera s 0-year-old orchestra will be opening up the symphonic season in style with a grandiose concert of Wagnerian works at the Erkel Theatre under the baton of Stefan Soltész. Attila Pacsay is composing a new piece for the New Year s concert, and Tibor Bogányi will conduct Orff s massive cantata Carmina burana in May. We re planning the season s closing orchestral concert in memory of János (Hans) Richter, the first Hungarian to conduct the Ring, for the reopened Opera House. Conducting the performances of the / season, along with the best-known Hungarian conductors, will be some of their finest international colleagues, including Philippe Auguin, Christian Badea, Marco Comin, Oliver von Dohnányi, Eugene Kohn, Michele Mariotti, Michael Schønwandt, Sebastian Weigle, Ralf Weikert and Massimo Zanetti. Bogányi Carmina burana Eötvös Bluebeard s Castle, Senza sangue Dohnányi Les Huguenots Héja The Merry Widow, La traviata, The Gypsy Baron, Turandot, Hunyadi László Kesselyák Die Rheinnixen, Nabucco, Il trittico, Tosca, The Karamazovs Comin Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci Auguin Iphigénie en Aulide Badea Stiffelio, New Year s Concert Halász Figaro 2.0, The Nutcracker, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Così fan tutte Kocsár Bánk bán, The Spinning Room, La bohème, Otello, Lucia di Lammermoor, Die tote Stadt, Parsifal, Bluebeard s Castle, Götterdämmerung The / ballet season also has a lot of excitement for lovers of the genre: we ll have a new production of the classic The Fountain of Bakhchisarai along with a Hungarian premiere of George Balanchine s choreography Theme & Variations. Returning to the repertoire will be The Karamazovs and La fille mal gardée. Also returning are the now-traditional Pas de Quatre, DanceTrend and, with its international guests, the Iván Nagy International Ballet Gala, the later in the reopened Opera House. In December, the Erkel Theatre will welcome the entire family with The Nutcracker, and the storybook world of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will be entertaining younger visitors in June. In May, the OperaAdventure programme for high-school students will become the BalletAdventure, bringing the genre to 25,000 youngsters. Inger Walking Mad Solymosi The Nutcracker Venekei A Streetcar Named Desire Kylián Six Dances, Petit mort Eifman The Karamazovs Eagling The Nutcracker Photos: Dario Acosta Sim Canetty-Clarke László Emmer Vera Éder Tamás Gács Borisz Jakovlevics Urban Jörén Lena Kern Marek Grotowski Béla Mezey Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra Roberto Ricci Balázs Székelyhidi Felix Broede Deutsche Grammophon
First of All Subscription and Card Programme SUBSCRIPTION PRE-SALE 16 March NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS 21 March 30 June Döbörhegyi Diána, Bodnár S. Oreszt Hutás Erzsébet Zsuzsanna, Könyves Tóth Mihály zenekari művészek Starostina Kristina Rálik Szilvia 5_02 5x5 -_ zta biz ves Mus Ó, én kedmaradsz, úgy párom /02/ ám! ti_ rtya_ ti_ka indd 55_02. _5x _- ti 10 opera Leblanc Gergely a gyerm Oláh Zoltán ámin csó Benj tagja Minar-Ba ekkar 0 16: /02/ 7 /02/ Eredeti szöveg : *Adamis... így járunk jól mind a ketten! ti_-_5x55_02 12 Boncsér Gergely / engem... /02/ 16:09 -_5x55_02.i ndd 11 As in previous years, customers will be able to prepare for the entire season: from the grandiose Season Opener to the Night of Stars gala event. Lovers of the genre won t have to abstain from the Opera during the summer break either, since we ll also get to meet on Margaret Island, at the Sziget Festival, in Miskolc, Veszprém, Balatonfüred and at Lake Tisza. Rosszul őriztek hát d 2 opera kozlovaekkar tagja a gyerm Első Sorban /02/ Melnik Tatiana Az volnék én: cigánybáró! ti 9 /02/ 02.ind 5x55_ - / /02, fám Eredeti szöveg : *Adamis /02/ 1 Ha legalább báró lenne 5_02 ti_-_5x55_02 3 András s Palerdi éneke Orsolya opera Sáfárénekes Első m enyé sak Bárc e a Hős! t i_ lenn -_5x5 5_02 opera Mes ope Anna, **Szte vanovity Dusán Sorban /02/ Kis ország, de nagykövet: mért ne érhetnénk el Önnél nagy sikereket? Judit s Németh éneke ter Vikt kes ória n orba ElsőS!* ti_-_5x55_02 4 /02 / p ig, szé háztól, za Most ped m, més Elvirá biz ám! mész, Tanykpa Könyves Tóth Mihál y -_5x5 yeva Aliya ek nagyzene hangzásá kar éppen ez ban a kép!**, ope Hutás zenekari Erzsébet Zsuzs művész anna, ám tudn sak Bárc ik a hős? mely rban Megölsz, mert akart csábí el tani? rcsák ekes Paszti raén rba n S. Oreszt rtya_ Megöllek, mert akartad csábít el ani! A 1, Bodnár művészek 1 Wiedemann Bernadett tat megmu l felülni hogaylapkelátra! Hangya Rita Kekalo Iurii es Tóth Mihál y 5 /02/ 16:09 ig ti_-_5x55_02 Most6ped om, ti_ka r Boldizsá s László éneke Pasztircsák Palerdi András indd Rácz Rita Bon Starostina Kristina _ 2 Hutás zenekari Erzsébet Zsuzs művészek anna, Könyv 55_02. 5x -_ Kekalo Iurii Wied Szem Leblanc Gergely ett S. Oreszt A nagyzene hangzásá kar csér Gerg ely kes 3 ti_kart 02/0 ya_ 5_ 2/ -_ 5x55_ 02 Szemere Zita Döbörhegyi Diána énekkari 5_02, Bodnár ek ti rban 1 ti_ka -_5x5 ri művész éppen ez ban a kép!** rba n Szólj rám, hangosan ma 1 énekelek!* 16:09 Legyél a törzsvendégünk! rban1 Döbörhegyi Diána énekka bale n orba ElsőS rtya_ / a Szilvi ekes Rálik raén 7 1 5x5 Téged akarattal védelek, -_ el. Őt akaratlan rtya_ árulom ti_ka /02 -_5x55_02.i Adok ndd 11 Látni neked hár om Akárm fogsz, de soh kulcsot. it lát sz, soh se kérdez / se kér z. dezz! /02 Azt jósolom, ami történik, vagy az történik, amit jósolok? 5 elek... így járunk jól mind a ketten! vet: gykö, de na k el szág tnén et? ek Kis or ne érhe /02/ siker mért l nagy Önné /02/ jetek, Csak jöjtegünk, nem ret ye Az Úr kegelünk! van miv /02/ ti_ Szólj rám, hangosan ma ének Rita sz Hangya ttművé rba n 5_02 indd 7 engem... elek, tal véd el. akarat Téged árulom ratlan Őt aka indd 10 operaén Az Úr kegyegünk, van mive e lünk! -_5x5 _5x55_02. Rosszul őriztek hát 12 Csak jöjje rtya_ ya_- Rácz 6 nem rett tek, ti_-_5x55_02 ti_ka ti_kart Rita kes 5_02 László Boldiz sár ekes Téged akar atta Őt akaratla l védelek, n árulom el. _5x55_02. bale _5x5 07 16: /02/ Anna, **Szte vanovity Dusán d 2 Bárcsak tudná melyik a hős? m, Bárcsak enyém lenne a Hős! /02/ Ó, én kedves Musztafám, nék én: párom marad cigán sz, úgy biz ám! ybáró! Zoltán Oláhttművész - / 02.ind 5x55_ -_ /02 _/ ya_ /02 ti Leblanc Gergely ti_kart ere Zita kes a gyerm a gyerm Az vol Legyél a törzsvendégünk! ti_-_5x55_02 6 lenne ya_- emann kes Bernad ámin csó Benj tagja Minar-Ba ekkar kozlovaekkar tagja báró ti_kart 1 balet op Tanykpa alább Most pedig, szép Elvirám, mész mész, biz ám! a háztól, Ha leg rban indd 9 4 _5x55_02. Kekalo Iurii ya Rita Hangtműv ész ia któr er Viekes Mesteraén ya_- x5 5_02 /02/ 16:09 1 Sáfár Orsolya dd _5x5 Molnár Leve kes nte ti_kart 02 5_ 5 _ 7-1 01 _2 rtya ka ti_ rle be - /02/ Legyél a törzsvendégünk! ya_ el. tatom megmu l felülni hogy kelátra! a lap 1 yeva Aliya ti_kart tani? rban.in Due to the renovation of the Opera House, subscription sales will take place in the usual fashion, we will provide existing subscription holders with the opportunity to choose from the new subscription structure in a pre-sale. Operas, ballets, concerts, matinees, youth performance everybody will find something they fancy from among the 40 different subscription packages. The four discount options introduced two years ago will again be available, allowing our customers to continue to take advantage of the Bonus, Bonus+, Flexible Subscription and Six Performance Card. For detailed information, see www.opera.hu. Pasztircsák akart csábí 2 1 an orb Megölsz, mert el / :07 16 ig Most ped, 2 0/0 opera indd 7 ak Melnik Tatiana ős Els _5x55_02. Téged rban ya_- ti t.. lcso dezz! m ku e kér dezz háro sohs e kér eked de sohs k n gsz, z, Ado tni fo láts it Lá árm Megöl Ak akart lek, mert el ad csábítani! 7 ti_kart Rálik Szilvia Bárcsak enyém lenne a Hős! aratta d 3 l védele ti_-_5x55_02.i /02/ 55_02.ind Őt ak ara ndd 11 tlan _5x árulom k, _- ti_-_5x55_02 Azt jós /02/ ami olo történtörténik, m, ik, am vagy az it jós olok? op Bárcsak tudná melyik a hős? m, Judit s Németh éneke... így járunk jól mind a ketten! engem... 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First of All MODERNISATION The modernisation and reopening of the Erkel Theatre, together with the completion of the Organisational Centre project, the opening of the Opera Café and Opera Shop and the multi-stage renovation of the Opera House, commenced in the summer of 15, mark the start of the implementation of an ambitious comprehensive plan. When completed in, the Budapest Opera will at last be able, as one of the world s greatest opera complexes, to match the leading European institutions in terms of infrastructure as well. The modernisation and restoration of the public areas of the palace on Andrássy Avenue began in. During the / season, the technical aspects of the stage will be addressed including the overhead machinery, the replacement of the fly system as will the repair of doorways and windows, low voltage systems (fire alarm, IT, orientation system) and a modern heating system. Modernising the stage and the machinery is both one of the main reasons for the project and one of its prime elements. The equipment installed in 194 is worn out after 33 years, and its technical parameters no longer meet today s requirements, which demand much greater speed and minimal noise. The renewal of the OPERA HOUSE The new machinery being installed will expand the range of available scenic possibilities, meaning that the standard of the Opera House s machinery will be competitive with other European opera houses. The work will involve dismantling the current machinery while retaining and expanding the overall system. Also being renewed is the Opera s Administrative Building on Hajós Street, and the multi-stage handover of the Eiffel Art Studios will also start in spring.
Many other tasks besides the reconstruction of the stage machinery will also take place. Recent measurements support work in the auditorium, which in the event of a full house is small and dry, lacking a full sound, while the proportions are unbalanced, to the detriment of the stage. Needed to fix the acoustics is the expansion of the orchestra pit and a rearrangement of the ground-floor seats, which will follow architect Miklós Ybl s original concept of having the ground-floor seats in a central block, with two side aisles and an aisle stretching crosswise in front of the orchestra pit. The textiles and surfaces in the auditorium and stage, which have the acoustic effect of swallowing sound, and the proscenium arch, which reflects voices, will be expanded. The statues on the roof will be replaced as a separate programme. During the modernisation, the Opera intends to continue installing floodlighting, a project started in winter of 11, with special regard to the new statues and with the aim of surrounding the entire building. The modernised chandelier in the auditorium, along with the wall lamps, will receive multi-colour LED lighting, and the repair and restoration of the aesthetic aspects of the interior spaces will also continue. Since 190, the Opera has worked with copper paint instead of gold, and this has necessitated treating the Grand Buffet, the Royal Staircase and Gallery with metallic foil. Also needed are the dry cleaning of the frescoes, and the replacement and repair of the carved wood, and all of the building s parquetry and brass railings are in very poor condition, in absolute need of repair. Another important task is to assure access for mobility-impaired visitors. The two staircases leading to the upper seats will get lifts to accommodate guests using wheelchairs, who will also get a specially designated box on the first floor and space on Level III. A comprehensive fire alarm system and broadcasting equipment also must be installed, along with a signal booster for mobile phones, an orientation system and a Wi-Fi network of maximum bandwidth using the most modern technology. 1