Music Cruises

Orchestra concerts

March 20
Palace of Arts – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, 7.30 pm

Joshua Bell and the Camerata Salzburg

Tchaikovsky: Violin concerto, op. 35
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7, op. 92

Conductor: Louis Langrée

Joshua Bell is one of today’s most successful violinists. Right from the beginning of his career this world-famous artist has been in the spotlight of attention with his recordings and concerts. One January morning in 2007 in one of Washington’s busiest metro stations, wearing old jeans, a T-shirt and baseball cap, for 43 minutes he played his fabulously expensive violin as a street musician. He played six difficult and demanding classical works as 1097 people, mainly middle-class government officials, walked past him. Most of them did not even stop or notice the extremely high artistic quality unusual in a pedestrian passage. Only a few people paused to listen to the music for a few minutes, seven people gave money and just over 32 dollars accumulated in the violin case. Only one woman recognised Joshua Bell. It seems that the popularity of the classical music star is very relative. As far as we know Joshua Bell is not planning to appear in 2009 in Blaha Lujza Square so we can enjoy his performance of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in a concert hall with considerably better acoustics. The excellent Camerata Salzburg, no stranger to the Budapest public, will be conducted by the leading French conductor Louis Langrée.

 March 21
Academy of Music, 7.30 pm

Oleg Maisenberg and the Kremerata Baltica

Prokofiev: Visions fugitives (arrangement for string orchestra: Rudolf Barshai), op.22
Shostakovich: Piano concerto No. 1
Arvo Pärt: Cantus in memoriam Britten
Britten: Lachrymae
Bartók: Divertimento

Few chamber ensembles are able to match the rapid international success achieved by the Kremerata Baltica established in 1997 at the initiative of Gidon Kremer. The orchestra composed of young musicians from three Baltic countries gives sixty concerts a year and has a repertoire ranging from Vivaldi to Piazzolla, from classical works to contemporary music. Its artistic director is Gidon Kremer. The ensemble appears at leading festivals and in famous concert halls with renowned conductors and soloists and has worked with such artists as Jessye Norman, Oleg Maisenberg, David Geringas, Boris Pergamenschikov, Tatiana Grindenko, Sir Simon Rattle, Christoph Eschenbach, Kent Nagano, Saulius Sondeckis, Andrej Borejko, Roman Kofman and Vladimir Ashkenazy. One of these artists, the famous Russian-born pianist Oleg Maisenberg will appear with them in Budapest.

March 22
Palace of Arts – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, 7.30 pm

Bartók Evening

The Miraculous Mandarin
Bluebeard’s Castle – semi-staged performance

Conductor: János Kovács

With: Ildikó Komlósi, László Polgár – voice, Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra

Director: Kornél Mundruczó

Following an excellent recording and a highly successful New York performance, the two famous Hungarian singers will sing again in Budapest of the hopeless love of Judit and Bluebeard. It is impossible here to list all the stages in the brilliant careers of Ildikó Komlósi and László Polgár. We shall mention only some of their engagements for the 2008–2009 season. Komlósi is singing Herodias in the Metropolitan Opera (R. Strauss: Salome), Carmen in Rome and the Verona Arena, Amneris in the Berlin and Munich Staatsoper, and in Verona (Verdi: Aida). She will appear in Cavalleria Rusticana in Cagliari (Teatro Lirico), the role of Princess de Bouillon in Adriana Lecouvreur awaits her in Covent Garden, and she will sing Federica in Luisa Miller in the Paris National Opera. László Polgár will take the role of Raimondo in Zurich (Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor), King Marke in Birmingham (Wagner: Tristan und Isolde). In 2009 he is to sing the roles of Talbot (Donizetti: Maria Stuarda), Colline (Puccini: La Bohčme) and Claudius (Handel: Agrippina) in Zurich. Besides Budapest, he will sing Bluebeard several times in Athens.

March 23
Academy of Music, 7.30 pm

23 March, 1939

Beethoven: Egmont overture, op. 84
Bartók: Violin concerto No. 2
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, op. 36

Conductor: Gábor Takács-Nagy

With: Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, András Keller – violin

The Hungarian Symphony Orchestra’s last season was characterised by new impulses, an experimental repertoire, thematic concerts and a fresh approach. András Keller, the new music director, is reverting to his “original profession” to perform the violin solo in this concert. And while he plays the solo of Bartók’s popular second violin concerto, the conductor’s baton will be wielded by another outstanding violinist, Gábor Takács-Nagy, founder of the famous Takács Quartet who has demonstrated over and over again in recent years that he is able to continue the noblest traditions as a conductor too.

The programme is the same as that of the concert held in Amsterdam on March 23, 1939 where Zoltán Székely gave the first performance of Bartók’s violin concerto under the baton of Willem Mengelberg.

March 24
Academy of Music, 7.30 pm

Napoleon and the Viennese

Schoenberg: Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, op. 41
Haydn: Nelson Mass, Hob. XXII:11
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 (Eroica), op. 55

Conductor: Zoltán Peskó

With: Rita Rácz, Annamária Kovács, Lucia Megyesi-Schwartz, Tibor Szappanos, Krisztián Cser – voice, MR Music Groups

The negative hero of the concert is the cursed, defeated and exiled Napoleon. Schoenberg shows in him the prototype of 20th century dictators, while the Nelson mass made the victorious admiral part of music history (although it was written on the occasion of the victory at the renowned battle of Abukir Bay). Finally, according to the well known story that turned out to be true, Beethoven originally dedicated his third symphony to Napoleon the consul, but when the Corsican became emperor he crossed out the dedication. The conductor for the concert will be the excellent Zoltán Peskó, who conducted the very successful performance of Pfitzner’s opera Palestrina at the last Spring Festival.

March 25
Palace of Arts – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, 7.30 pm

An evening with the Hungarian National Philharmonic on the anniversary of Bartók’s birth

Debussy: Jeux
Bartók: Rhapsody for violin, Nos. 1 and 2
Bartók: Four pieces for orchestra, op. 12
Bartók: Cantata profana

Conductor: Zoltán Kocsis

With: Barnabás Kelemen – violin, Szabolcs Brickner, Mihály Kálmándi – voice

Choirmaster: Mátyás Antal

According to the experts Debussy created his most modern and exciting score when he composed ballet music based on the search for a lost tennis ball. We will never know whether Jeux really could have been the beginning of a new period for Debussy, but Zoltán Kocsis will certainly show that it is a wonderful composition worth discovering. Few people can match his deep feeling for and understanding of the art of the French composer.

The Bartók programme within the concert timed to coincide with the birthday of Béla Bartók could be a full programme in itself. In addition to the popular violin rhapsodies it features two basic works of 20th century music. A few years ago it was still necessary to point out the exceptional merits of the Four pieces for orchestra. Today (thanks to the revelatory interpretations of Zoltán Kocsis and Péter Eötvös) the work occupies its rightful place in the repertoire and in the hearts of concert-goers. For a long while Cantata profana enjoyed the respect due to major works, but conductors seem to have neglected it in recent years. Here is the opportunity to realise that life is not worth living without such a masterpiece. We will be helped in this discovery not only by the many outstanding musicians but also by Szabolcs Brickner who scored one of the most brilliant victories of the last decade when he won the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium in May 2008.

 March 26
Palace of Arts – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, 7.30 pm

Scottish Chamber Orchestra

J. Ch. Bach: Lucio Silla – overture
Mozart: Piano concerto No. 18 in B flat major, K 456
Mozart: Divertimento in E flat major, K 113 
Mozart: Piano concerto No. 24 in C minor, K 491

With: Piotr Anderszewski – piano

With his Budapest solo evening the brilliant Polish-Hungarian pianist Piotr Anderszewski became one of the public’s favourites. On this occasion he is to perform two Mozart piano concertos with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. The ensemble is one of the very best; it has made many recordings with Sir Charles Mackerras and given memorable concerts and opera productions. In 2006 the Scottish Chamber Ensemble recorded two Mozart piano concertos (K 453 and K 466) with Anderszewski for a CD that was received with enthusiasm by the experts and the public. BBC Music Magazine’s critic rated it as “not to be missed”.

March 27
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Ceremonial Hall, Roosevelt tér, 7.30 pm

Szabadi 50

Mendelssohn: Violin concerto in E minor, op. 64
Sibelius: Violin concerto in D minor, op. 47
Beethoven: Triple concerto in C major, op. 56

Conductor: Zsolt Hamar

With: Vilmos Szabadi – violin, Csaba Onczay – cello, Márta Gulyás – piano, Pannon Philharmonics – Pécs

Unbelievable, but true: Vilmos Szabadi will be 50 on March 10, 2009! It seems like only yesterday that he won first prize in two top violin competitions, in 1982 and again in 1983, and we still vividly remember how Sir Georg Solti and the London Philharmonics invited him to play the Bartók 2nd violin concerto in the Royal Festival Hall at the Bartók gala concert in 1988. He is now rewarding the public with a really big concert in which he takes the lion’s share in each number, faithful to the spirit of his entire career. In Mendelssohn’s popular violin concerto and the equally challenging Sibelius concerto we can celebrate together with the great virtuoso, and in Beethoven’s triple concerto with the first-rate chamber musician always responding sensitively to his partners.

March 29
Palace of Arts – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, 7.30 pm

Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra

Smetana: Vltava
Dvořák: Violin concerto in A minor, op. 53
Martinů: Symphony No. 1

Conductor: Vladimír Válek

With: Dimitri Berlinsky – violin

“Our Guest the Czech Republic”

 The Czech Republic is greeting Budapest with masterpieces of Czech music. The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra established in 1926 is one of Europe’s prestigious old ensembles. It has played under the baton of such great conductors as Charles Munch, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Sir Charles Mackerras and Vaclav Neumann. Famous composers – Honegger, Khachaturian, Penderecki – also conducted the ensemble. After the Second World War it was headed by Karol Ancerl, Alois Klima and Jaroslav Krombholc and at present it is under the direction of Vladimír Válek. It is now considered to be one of the leading radio orchestras. Together with its principal conductor the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra has taken part in successful concert tours and made many recordings. Válek has recorded all Martinů’s symphonies with this ensemble.

March 30
Palace of Arts – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, 7.30 pm

Mahler Chamber Orchestra

Beethoven: Piano concerto No. 5 in E flat major, op. 73
Brahms: Symphony No. 3

Conductor: Daniel Harding

With: Fazil Say – piano

Anyone who has seen and heard live or on DVD the Aix-en-Provence festival productions directed by Peter Brook (Don Giovanni) and Patrice Chéreau (Cosě fan tutte) will certainly have noticed the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and its young conductor, Daniel Harding. The Oxford-born young man first attracted attention as assistant to Sir Simon Rattle, then to Claudio Abbado. From 2003 he became music director of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and from 2007 director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He conducts leading ensembles and is a regular guest at prestigious festivals. Milestones in his career as an opera conductor have been two productions at Covent Garden (Britten: The Turn of the Screw; Berg: Wozzeck) and the premičre of Idomeneo in the Milan Scala (2005). Harding conducted the Wiener Philharmoniker in a performance of Don Giovanni at the 2006 Salzburg Mozart celebrations. He will appear in Budapest with the virtuoso Turkish pianist and composer, Fazil Say who, as ambassador of the year in 2008 represents the main goals of the EU initiative “European Year of Intercultural Dialogue”.

 March 31
Academy of Music, 7.30 pm

Miklós Perényi and the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra

Haydn: Symphony in C minor, No. 52
Haydn: Cello concerto in C major
Haydn: Symphony in E minor (Trauer), No. 44
Haydn: Cello concerto in D major

Concertmaster: János Rolla

The concert to be given by Miklós Perényi and the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra is an outstanding event of the Haydn year. In 2008 concert-goers celebrated a double anniversary, the 60th birthday of the famous cellist and the 45th anniversary of the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra. Isaac Stern said of the ensemble that “this orchestra is like a comfortable pair of shoes”, so it is not surprising that towards the end of his career one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century preferred to tour with the ensemble led by János Rolla. According to Péter Eötvös, Miklós Perényi “is like nature, like the trees and the flowers: he just exists and radiates”. On this occasion their much awaited joint concert will celebrate Joseph Haydn. The programme features two of the composer’s great symphonies and two of his cello concertos, and we could hardly wish more than that for ourselves.

April 1
Academy of Music, 7.30 pm

Haydn: The Seasons

Conductor: György Vashegyi

With: Tünde Szabóki, Timothy Bentch, István Kovács – voice, Orfeo Orchestra, Purcell Choir

György Vashegyi and his ensembles performed the splendid Haydn oratorio in February 2006. A critic wrote the following about the excellent concert: “The sections of the Purcell Choir create a texture that is substantial but allows the music to breathe, with their agile and healthy voices. And something that most non-period vocal ensembles are unable to do: they present greatness and evoke big forms in structure and extent without monumentalising. György Vashegyi conducted a Seasons that was well articulated, full of colours and contrasts, allowing full play for the dramatic elements and liveliness, emphasising what is the work’s principal speciality and at the same time its greatest attraction: the popular flavours imbuing the mood and character of the composition.”

And how does the conductor see this attractive composition? “A big question of the period music movement in past decades was, once the almost “magic” threshold of 1800 has been crossed, whether there is and can be a justification and purpose for performing the later repertoire on original period instruments or copies. For us in Hungary the first milestone in this area was the performance of Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Seasons at Fertőszentmiklós in 2003. In this work the composer, who was sixty-eight in 1800 and who had spent his youth immersed in late Baroque music, drew with an amazingly sure hand, in fact foreshadowed the emerging Romanticism, right up to the art of Wagner.”

April 3
Palace of Arts – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, 7.45 pm

Budapest Festival Orchestra

Sibelius: The Oceanides – symphonic poem
Prokofiev: Piano concerto No. 2
Schumann: Symphony No. 3

Conductor: Sir Andrew Davis

With: Arkadi Volodos – piano

The guest conductor of the Festival Orchestra will be the extremely versatile Sir Andrew Davis. He is equally at home in Baroque, Romantic, Viennese classic and contemporary music. For years he was the artistic director of the famous Glyndebourne Opera Festival, currently he is music director of the Chicago Opera House and artistic consultant to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared with practically all the leading international orchestras, from the Berlin Philharmonic through the Concertgebouw Orchestra to the Chicago Symphony.

He will accompany Arkadi Volodos in Prokofiev’s second piano concerto. The pianist, born in 1972 in St Petersburg and blessed with fiendish abilities, studied in his native city, then in Moscow, Paris and Madrid. His meteoric career did not begin with a victory in a big competition –Volodos considers competition to be foreign to music and has never entered one. The attention of the head of a record company on a visit to France was drawn to the Russian pianist who was studying there: “You meet a talent like Volodos once in a lifetime” – was his opinion and a recording contract followed immediately. The CD of piano arrangements appeared in 1997 and was an enormous success, winning a host of prizes (Gramophone Award, German Critics Prize, etc.). The success story has continued without interruption. A solo recital in Carnegie Hall (the live recording also won numerous prizes), invitations from great orchestras and festivals. The critics most often compare Volodos’s playing to that of Horowitz: brilliant technique, sometimes surprising solutions that avoid conventions but always serve the music, a special ability to charm the listener.

April 4
Academy of Music, 7.30 pm

Susan Graham and the Ensemble Matheus

Arias from Mozart operas: Le Nozze di Figaro and Mitridate
Haydn: Symphony in G minor (La Poule), No. 83

Conductor: Jean-Christophe Spinosi

Violinist and conductor Jean-Christophe Spinosi was born in Corsica,  in 1991, at the age of 26, he founded the Matheus Quartet. In 1993 the ensemble won a prize at the Amsterdam Van Wassanae Competition. This quartet later became the core of the Ensemble Matheus with which he could try his musical talent in all genres, from concertos to operas, from symphonies to masses. He has worked together with renowned soloists, among others partnering Sandrine Piau, Veronica Cangemi, Matthias Goerne, Philippe Jaroussky, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Nathalie Stutzmann, Jennifer Larmore, Sara Mingardo, Marjana Mijanovoic. His recordings have won many prizes. In summer 2008 in Vienna he conducted the Magic Flute in the Theater an der Wien. In Budapest he will accompany Susan Graham, one of the brightest opera stars and “America’s favourite mezzo”. The artist was voted singer of the year in 2004 by Musical America, and Midland, Texas (where she spent her childhood) has declared September 5 “Susan Graham Day”.

April 4
Thália Theatre, 7.30 pm

Haydn-Schoenberg

Haydn: Seven Last Words
Schoenberg: Five orchestral pieces, op. 16

Conductor: Balázs Kocsár

With: Philharmonic Orchestra of Debrecen, Kodály Choir of Debrecen

Chamber evenings

March 22
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Ceremonial Hall, Roosevelt tér, 7.30 pm

Kodály Quartet

Haydn: String quartet in G minor, op. 74 No. 3, Hob. III:74 
Emil Petrovics: String quartet No. 3
Beethoven: Septet

With: Milan Turkovic – bassoon, Dimitri Ashkenazy – clarinet, N. N. – horn

The world famous Kodály Quartet formed over four decades ago links the first great figure in the most elevated genre of classical music, Joseph Haydn whose 200th death anniversary we are celebrating this year, with one of the major contemporary representatives of the string quartet tradition, Emil Petrovics, whose third string quartet will be performed for the first time at this concert. Petrovics’s finely wrought first two string quartets can be regarded as late descendants of the tradition reaching from Haydn, through Beethoven, to Bartók, and he remains faithful to this tradition in his latest work too. Beethoven will also be represented at the concert, although not as a quartet composer: his rarely heard op. 20 Septet will be performed with the participation of several of today’s greatest wind soloists. Beethoven dedicated this early work to Maria Theresa and it became one of his most popular pieces in the first decade of the 19th century.

March 22
Academy of Music, 7.30 pm

Amadinda 25

Amadinda – traditional music; Uganda
Gahu – traditional music; Ghana
Steve Reich: Music for Pieces of Wood
Maurice Ravel: Alborada del gracioso (arrangement by Aurél Holló)
István Márta: Doll’s House Story
Aurél Holló– Zoltán Váczi: Traditions Part I – SUCCESS NUMBER / beFORe JOHN7
Rolf Wallin: Stonewave
Bob Becker: Unseen Child
Jazz evergreens and ragtime numbers
Mbira – traditional music; Zimbabwe
Agbadza – traditional music; Ghana

With: László Tömösközi, Mátyás Szabó – percussion, and past and present students

March 25
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Ceremonial Hall, Roosevelt tér, 7.30 pm

Haydn–Bartók Chamber Evening

Haydn: Capriccio for piano in G major, Hob. XVII:1
Bartók: Rhapsody No. 1 for cello and piano
Bartók: Rhapsody No. 2 for violin and piano
Haydn: Trio in G major (Zigeunertrio), Hob. XV:25
Bartók: Contrasts
Haydn: Trio in C major, Hob. XV:27

With: Gottlieb Wallisch – piano, Réka Szilvay – violin, Richard Harwood – cello, Ralph Manno – clarinet

Two centuries after the death of Joseph Haydn, on the birthday of Béla Bartók four young musicians are paying tribute to the major Austrian and the greatest Hungarian composer. The sensitively selected programme allows the four instrumentalists to show their solo and chamber music skills in practically all possible combinations and although they are perhaps less well known in Hungary, they certainly have abilities to present: they are among the most talented musicians of their generation. The Austrian Gottlieb Wallisch, who can already boast of a considerable discography, is paying tribute to his favourite composer with a series of three Haydn concerts in the Vienna Musikverein in the 2008/2009 season. The Finnish Réka Szilvay born to Austrian and Hungarian parents, is mentioned by the critics as one of the most promising new violinists. Cellist Richard Harwood has won numerous prizes and last year EMI released his solo recording. The German clarinettist, Ralph Manno has a contract with Sony BMG and teaches at the Cologne Academy of Music. In addition to the performances of these exceptional musicians, the evening will also be of musical historical interest: there is certain to be a fruitful dialogue between the works of Haydn and Bartók, two composers who successfully blended their instinctive musicality and exceptional intellects.

March 26
Marble Hall of the Hungarian Radio, 7.30 pm

Bozay Evening

Piano sonata No. 1, op. 33./a
Poor Yorick – song cycle to poems by István Kormos, op. 39./b
Sonata for cello and piano, op. 35.
String quartet No. 3, op. 40.

With: Klára Körmendi, Melinda Bozay – piano, László Pólus – cello, Ákos Ambrus – voice, Somogyi Quartet

The concert is free but you are kindly requested to register in advance.

March 27
Marble Hall of the Hungarian Radio, 7.30 pm

Violin Recital by Lev Solodovnikov

Winner of the 2007 Szigeti–Hubay International Violin Competition

The concert is free but you are kindly requested to register in advance.

March 28
Academy of Music, 7.30 pm

French Melodies with Philippe Jaroussky

Works by Fauré, Hahn and Berlioz

With: Jérôme Ducros – piano

“An angelic voice, the appearance of a young boy, an informal style. Philippe Jaroussky is a real pop star figure, he could even be the lead singer of a popular boys’ group. But the 30-year-old French artist is one of the world’s most acclaimed countertenors. He appears in Europe’s most prestigious opera houses, his solo albums sell well, Mezzo the classical music TV channel plays his recordings hourly. Jaroussky is the prototype of the countertenor of the modern age: slightly feminine, easily made a star and exceptionally talented.” Judit Beszterczey

"Many people come because they heard that the latest generation of castrati is here. All countertenors have to struggle with that. In most forums I say that there is no longer any need for bizarre and brutal techniques for a man to be able to sing in a high voice. I give detailed talks on the falsetto technique used to achieve this timbre." Jaroussky

 March 30
Thália Theatre, 7.30 pm

Omaggio a Luciano Berio

Sequenza IXa – for clarinet
Sequenza I – for flute
Linea – for two pianos and percussion
Sequenza VIIa – for clarinet
Sequenza III – for voice
Folk Songs – for voice and chamber ensemble

With: Katalin Károlyi – voice, Dezső Ránki, Edit Klukon – piano, Aurél Holló, Zoltán Rácz – percussion, Béla Horváth – oboe, Gergely Ittzés – flute, Csaba Klenyán – clarinet, UMZE Chamber Ensemble (conductor: Zoltán Rácz)

A joint programme with UMZE, the New Hungarian Music Society.

 March 30
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Ceremonial Hall, Roosevelt tér, 7.30 pm

Bartók Quartet

Haydn: String quartet in G minor, op. 74 No. 3
Mendelssohn: Sting quartet in E flat major, op. 12
Dvořák: String quartet in F major, op. 96

March 31
Marble Hall of the Hungarian Radio, 7.30 pm

Piano Recital by Mika Teranagane, Most Successful Participant of the Franz Liszt Seminar, Sapporo

Scriabin: Preludes op.11 Nos.1, 2, 6, 10, 13
Toshi Ichiyanagi: Inter Konzert
Poulenc: Les soirées de Nazelles
Berg: Piano sonata, op.1
Granados: Goyescas
    I. Los requiebros (Flattery)
    IV. Quejas o La maja y el ruiseńor (Laments or The Maja and the Nightingale)
    V. El amor y la muerte (Love and Death)

The concert is free but you are kindly requested to register in advance.

April 2
Festetics Palace, Hall of Mirrors, 7.30 pm

Mendelssohn Duets

With: Andrea Meláth, Ye Wen – voice, Emese Virág – piano

April 3
Festetics Palace, Hall of Mirrors, 7.30 pm

Cimbalom Recital by Ágnes Szakály

“Hommage ŕ Haydn”

Haydn: Zingarese
Péter Tóth: Haydn’s Seven Last Words – world premičre
Haydn: Divertimento in D major, Hob. IV:6.
Haydn: Roxelane variations
Iván Madarász: H – world premičre
Haydn: Trio in G major, Hob. XV:25

With: Éva Dúlfalvy – violin, György Deák – cello, István Dominkó – piano

If we accept the assessment of Stravinsky, who was sincerely enthusiastic about the art of Aladár Rácz and his instrument, that the cimbalom is a "rare beast", then we can say that one of the greatest cimbalom tamers of today is Ágnes Szakály. In her career of over thirty years marked by many successes she has not only made and played countless arrangements of classical works but fourteen cimbalom concertos have been written for her, ensuring her a place in the history of music in the late 20th century. And we have not even mentioned her excursions into jazz and other genres. At the Spring Festival she pays tribute to Joseph Haydn deceased in 1809, and with the two world premičres included in her programme she wishes to show that in the 21st century the cimbalom will remain an important catalyst of new music and that, despite the distance of over 200 years, Joseph Haydn can still be regarded as one of our most influential contemporaries.

Church concerts

March 25
Matthias Church, 8.00 pm

Budapest Tomkins Vocal Ensemble

Artistic director: János Dobra

With: Miklós Teleki – organ

March 27
Calvinist Congregation of Buda, 8.00 pm

Ferenc Kiss:

Hungarian Cancionale – Geneva Psalms

World music concert in memory of John Calvin

With: Szilvia Bognár – voice

Károly Babos – percussion

István Csörsz Rumen – period instruments, voice

Mihály Huszár – double bass, voice

Ferenc Kiss – viola, kobza, voice

Zsigmond Lázár – organ, harmonium, violin

Zoltán Szabó – wind instruments

“I myself, who was christened in Debrecen more than half a century ago as a “thick-necked Calvinist”, began to think as the Calvin anniversary approached that it would be a good thing to explore the hidden, invisible but clearly discernable underground channels between Calvinist congregational singing and Hungarian folk music, chronicle songs and early music. To illuminate them brightly, make them usable and modern.

This is what I and my colleagues are trying to do in the genre of world music. I am planning Hungarian Cancionale as an easily organised and movable, inspired chamber music production that we would like to take to Calvinist churches. To conduct a dialogue together with the audience with the heavenly powers, in our own language. Preserving the musical relics of several centuries but also renewing them. Respecting the traditions of congregational singing, but modernising the instrumental sound. Preserving and strengthening the desire of people today for faith, community and cohesion.” Ferenc Kiss

March 28
Matthias Church, 8.00 pm

Napoleon ante portas!

Haydn: Nikolai-messe, Hob. XXII:6
Haydn: Paukenmesse, Hob. XXII:9

Conductor: Kálmán Záborszky

With: Veronika Geszthy, Katalin Halmai, Tibor Szappanos, Péter Cser – voice, Zugló Philharmonia – King Saint Stephen Symphony Orchestra and Oratorio Choir

“It is well known that Joseph Haydn, the excellent composer, cannot always curb his extravagances. Many of his church compositions are imbued not with the spirit of sacred gravity befitting the temple of the Lord, but with a comic, profane spirit. Not to mention a hundred glaring details, it is sufficient to refer to a certain Agnus Dei in which the kettle drum represents the heartbeat.” Haydn’s younger contemporary, the purist church musician von Mastiaux is referring in this passage to the Agnus of the Mise in tempore belli. The kettle-drum and trumpets also remind us of the threatening atmosphere of the Napoleonic Wars that were taking place when the work was composed in 1796.

The Mise in tempore belli is the first of the six great masses that Haydn wrote to greet the wife of Nicholas Esterházy II on her name-day. The Saint Nicholas Mass composed twenty-four years earlier, in 1772, was also intended for a name-day, for December 6, the feast of the patron saint of Prince Nicholas. Coming immediately after the storms of the Farewell Symphony, this mass radiates joie de vivre – as though Haydn were expressing his gratitude to the prince for his positive response to the “warning strike” of the symphony.

April 4
Matthias Church, 8.00 pm

Before Palm Sunday

Haydn: Te Deum
Haydn: Violin concerto in G major
Haydn: Mass in B flat major (Theresienmesse), Hob. XXII:12

Conductor: Gábor Baross

With: ELTE Béla Bartók Choir and University Concert Orchestra, Éva Dúlfalvy – violin

Both of the oratorios on the programme can be linked to the singing empress, Maria Teresa Carolina, wife of Emperor Francis I. She commissioned the Te Deum, and she is said to have participated as solo soprano at a performance of the Theresienmesse, hence the popular name of the work. Although the sound of battles of the Napoleonic wars is echoed in the Theresienmesse composed in 1799, this is the most tenderly lyrical of the six late masses. The unusual feature of the Te Deum completed by 1800 is that it dresses the Gregorian Te Deum melody in the garb of classical music. Since it was customary to sing this hymn at thanksgiving services after victorious battles, it is possible that Haydn’s work greeted Admiral Nelson on his visit to Eszterháza after the victory of Abukir Bay.

The G major violin concerto, an early composition, provides an interesting contrast to Haydn’s late works. It is dated to 1769, but considering its old-fashioned style it could have been written before he entered Esterházy service in 1761.

Opera

March 21
Railway Museum, 7.00 pm

Haydn: Philemon und Baucis

Director: Balázs Kovalik

Music director: Konstantia Gourzi

One-act opera, sung in German

March 22
Palace of Arts – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, 7.30 pm

Bartók Evening

The Miraculous Mandarin
Bluebeard’s Castle – semi-staged performance

Conductor: János Kovács

With: Ildikó Komlósi, László Polgár – voice, Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra

Director: Kornél Mundruczó

Following an excellent recording and a highly successful New York performance, the two famous Hungarian singers will sing again in Budapest of the hopeless love of Judit and Bluebeard. It is impossible here to list all the stages in the brilliant careers of Ildikó Komlósi and László Polgár. We shall mention only some of their engagements for the 2008–2009 season. Komlósi is singing Herodias in the Metropolitan Opera (R. Strauss: Salome), Carmen in Rome and the Verona Arena, Amneris in the Berlin and Munich Staatsoper, and in Verona (Verdi: Aida). She will appear in Cavalleria Rusticana in Cagliari (Teatro Lirico), the role of Princess de Bouillon in Adriana Lecouvreur awaits her in Covent Garden, and she will sing Federica in Luisa Miller in the Paris National Opera. László Polgár will take the role of Raimondo in Zurich (Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor), King Marke in Birmingham (Wagner: Tristan und Isolde). In 2009 he is to sing the roles of Talbot (Donizetti: Maria Stuarda), Colline (Puccini: La Bohčme) and Claudius (Handel: Agrippina) in Zurich. Besides Budapest, he will sing Bluebeard several times in Athens.

March 22/28
Hungarian State Opera House, 7.00 pm

Puccini: Turandot

Turandot: Mária Farkasréti
Altoum: István Róka
Timur: László Szvétek
Kalaf: Attila Kiss B.
Liu: Ilona Tokody
Ping: András Kálid Kiss
Pang: Ferenc Gerdesits
Pong: Péter Kiss
Mandarin: András Palerdi

Conductor: Péter Oberfrank

With: Orchestra and Choir of Hungarian State Opera House

Director: Balázs Kovalik

Sets: Éva Szendrényi

Costumes: Márta Jánoskúti

Choirmaster: Máté Szabó Sipos

Opera in three acts, sung in Italian,

with Hungarian surtitles.

 Probably even composers holding the most elevated artistic principles nurture a secret desire that one day they would hear their own works whistled by the man in the street. If this wish ever came true for anyone, it certainly did not Puccini: perhaps nothing from opera has made the transition to popular culture as easily as Nessun dorma, the famous tenor aria from Turandot. True, Puccini did not live to witness its popularity – he died in 1924 leaving the opera unfinished. Of course, the hit status in itself gives no idea of the impressive emotional dimensions of Puccini’s works. In the case of Turandot, the composer who was fighting a losing battle with throat cancer, transformed the story of a blood-thirsty Chinese princess into his hymn to spiritual rebirth.

March 29/31
Hungarian State Opera House, 7.00 pm

Haydn: Orfeo ed Euridice, or The Soul of the Philosopher – premičre

Orfeo: Kenneth Tarver
Euridice: Andrea Rost
Kreon: Csaba Szegedi
The soul: Júlia Hajnóczy
Pluto: Krisztián Cser

Conductor: Ádám Fischer

With: Orchestra and Choir of Hungarian State Opera House

Director: Sándor Zsótér

Stage sets: Mária Ambrus

Costumes: Mari Benedek

Choirmaster: Máté Szabó Sipos

Opera in four acts, in two parts, sung in Italian

A joint production with the Hungarian State Opera House.

The joys of Haydn’s first visit to London were tempered with a little bitterness. The orchestra had barely played the first forty bars of the overture at the first rehearsal of Orfeo ed Euridice, or The Soul of the Philosopher when it was interrupted by representatives of the authorities who, in the name of the king and parliament, ordered that all work on the opera be stopped, saying that no performance could be held in a theatre that had been built without a permit. This happened in the spring of 1791, in London’s Italian opera house rebuilt after the fire. Haydn never heard his last and perhaps most popular opera: the premičre was not held until 160 years later. The libretto expands the basic story of the myth, adding the figure of Arideus, a rival of Orpheus, and in contrast with the operas of Monteverdi and Gluck, it also presents the tragic death of Orpheus. If the incident in London had not prevented further work, it is quite possible that Haydn would have ended the work with an epilogue that would perhaps have thrown light on the meaning of the enigmatic sub-title.

April 5
Palace of Arts – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, 7.00 pm

Vienna State Opera

Mozart: Don Giovanni – concert performance

Conductor: Ádám Fischer

Don Giovanni: Ildebrando D`Arcangelo

Commendatare: Ain Anger

Donna Anna: Krassimira Stoyanova

Don Ottavio: Francesco Meli

Donna Elvira: Aga Mikolaj

Leporello: Wolfgang Bankl

Zerlina: Alexandra Reinprecht

Masetto: Marcus Pelz

By his own admission Ádám Fischer likes conducting opera best of all, and Budapest audiences have been able to experience the beneficial consequences of this preference many times. The outstanding conductor has been co-operating since 1973 with the Austrian institution representing the peak of opera and on this occasion he will conduct the guest performance by artists of the Wiener Staatsoper.

The “opera of operas”, Mozart’s masterpiece has been disturbing thinking people for over two hundred years. Both performer and listener again and again come up against mysteries to be solved at any points in the texture of this music drama. And since no one has yet solved them all, each new performance holds out the joy of discovery.

Operetta - Musical

March 20
Budapest Operetta Theatre, 7.00 pm

Emmerich Kálmán: Die Bajadere – premičre

Director: KERO®

With: Erika Miklósa, Attila Dolhai

Operetta performance in Hungarian, with German surtitles.

Coproduction with the St. Petersburg State Musical Comedy Theatre

 Prince Radjami, heir to the throne of Lahore, lives the life of carefree Europeans in Paris. According to the laws of his country he must soon marry and occupy the throne of his ancestors. But he has fallen in love with Odette, the celebrated Parisian artist, who is playing the leading role in a variety hall in The Bayadčre, an operetta with an Indian theme. The story is set in a prince’s palace, in an "Indian setting". The "mystic" environment of the stage helps the prince to win Odette.

March 21
Budapest Operetta Theatre, 7.00 pm

Emmerich Kálmán: Die Bajadere

Director: KERO®

With: Erika Miklósa, Attila Dolhai

Operetta performance in Hungarian, with German surtitles.

Coproduction with the St. Petersburg State Musical Comedy Theatre

 Who are the Bayadčres? Indian temple dancers and singers. They belong to the gods and show their devotion to them with dance, song and other services. The order of Bayadčres admits only girls who are still in their childhood and whose parents entirely renounce them in favour of the temple. The Bayadčre is not required to preserve her virginity; she can form a relationship with a man who is not from a lower class. The children of Bayadčres are educated by the priests: the boys become temple musicians and the girls temple servants. The Bayadčres join up in groups and travel around the country under the supervision of an elder woman leader (daja).

International Theatre Festival

March 20
National Theatre, 7.00 pm

Botho Strauss: The Park – Hungarian premičre

Titania: Mari Nagy
Oberon: Zsolt László
Cyprian: Roland Rába
Helen: Judit Schell
Georg: Zoltán Rátóti
Helma: Tünde Murányi
Wolf: András Stohl
Only child: Frigyes Hollósi
Dandy: Gábor Hevér
First man: Béla Spindler
Second man: József Szarvas
Third man: Miklós Benedek
Death: Judit Csoma
Young girl: Piroska Mészáros
First boy, Titania’s son: Zalán Makranczi
Second boy: Péter Orth
Third boy: Attila László
Young gentleman: Krisztián Gergye

Director: Róbert Alföldi

Stage sets: Róbert Menczel

Costumes: Sándor Daróczy

Dramaturgy: Róbert Vörös, Enikő Perczel

A joint programme with the National Theatre.

 Botho Strauss (1944) is one of the representatives of contemporary German drama most frequently performed in Europe. He studied literature, theatre history and sociology – the influence of the latter is obvious in his work as a dramatist. From the second half of the sixties he worked with Theater heute, then at the age of 26 he became dramaturgist with the Berlin Schaubühne. He wrote his first plays at the encouragement and for the stage of Peter Stein, director at the time but it was not long before others, among them the great French directors Luc Bondy, Claude Régy and Patrice Chéreau, also took notice of him. It was observed at the presentation of the Schiller Medal in 2007 that he is the “independent and critical chronicler of German society”. According to András Forgách, the Hungarian translator of The Park “He is simultaneously a shameless sensation-seeker and modestly seeks concealment.” His writings are imbued with the question of fatality and nostalgia for the various forms of tragedy, but he can also display biting humour. This is not the first time his work has been performed in a Hungarian theatre.

March 21
National Theatre, 7.00 pm

Botho Strauss: The Park

Director: Róbert Alföldi

Stage sets: Róbert Menczel

Costumes: Sándor Daróczy

Dramaturgy: Róbert Vörös, Enikő Perczel

A joint programme with the National Theatre.

 Since time immemorial the gods have longed for the smell of the earth, while humans try to conquer the air, the higher spheres – hopelessly. Oberon and Titania, “deserters” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, wander around a city park to arouse in people the real, ancient desire of love. As the ambassador of his erotic mission, Oberon chooses the homosexual artist, Cyprian, who enchants the colourful residents of the park with the amulets he makes. But it is not enough to recognise the problem, one must also know how the remedy acts: despite the best of intentions, intervention from above can lead to a nightmare destroying body and soul. In the encounter between the mystic and harsh, everyday reality the divine intention ends up becoming its opposite: the quarrelling, unhappy lovers do not reach the divine recognition but instead the gods become like mortals.

A bittersweet comedy, a poetic play of metamorphosis, where the scenes paint a merciless picture of society in what could be described as a mythical space thoroughly misunderstood by the gods, for the park is actually nature tamed.

March 23
National Theatre, 7.00 pm

Guest Performance of the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus and Rimini Protokoll

Marx: Capital, Vol. I.

Written and directed by: Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel

With: Thomas Kuczynski (statistician and economic historian); Ulf Mailänder (writer and therapist); Talivaldis Margevic (historian and film-maker); Jochen Noth (company consultant and university lecturer specialising in China and Asia); Christian Spremberg (call centre agent); Ralph Warnholz (electrician (public service employee), former gambler); Franziska Zwerg (translator)

Theatre performance in German with Hungarian surtitles.

A joint programme with the National Theatre.

 The founding members of the unique but much debated Rimini Protokoll theatre group, Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi and Daniel Wetzel met in the nineties at the Giessen Institute for Applied Theatre Studies. Although the genre has considerable traditions in Germany, according to a German critic the activity of Rimini Protokoll represents “the revival and complete reinterpretation of documentarist theatre”. They have presented the bankruptcy of the Sabena airline, examined the kinds of death in Central Europe and the maze of international diplomacy and brought residents of Mannheim and Weimar to reinterpret their lives in the light of Schiller texts. Thorough research work precedes their so-called “experts’ theatre” performances; what we see on the stage are not actors but the actual sources of the text, private persons sharing their own experiences.

They were guests of the Budapest Autumn Festival in 2006 with a performance titled Blaiberg und sweetheart19 that examined the question of Internet dating and heart transplants.

March 24
National Theatre, 7.00 pm

Guest Performance of the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus and Rimini Protokoll

Marx: Capital, Vol. I.

Written and directed by: Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel

Dramaturgy: Imanuel Schipper and Andrea Schwieter

Sets and design: Helgard Haug, Daniel Wetzel and Daniel Schulz

Lighting: Konstantin Sonnenson

Video: Michael Koch, Martin Hasenröhl

Theatre performance in German with Hungarian surtitles.

A joint programme with the National Theatre.

 Take a lengthy theoretical work published in 1867, about which everyone talks but which very few people have read. That has an influence not only on economic theory and political practice, but also, whether they liked it or not, on the everyday lives of many people. But before you are put off, the Rimini Protokoll’s performance is not a dramatised stage version of Marx’s work; the directors have chosen from several hundred candidates the eight persons who tell each other and the audience about the role Das Kapital has played in their lives. Eight different life stories and professional careers, eight different readings of Marxist ideology and thinking set in a theatre space that is impressive in itself.

The production won first prize in the 2007 Mülheim drama competition.

March 26
National Theatre, 7.00 pm

Guest Performance of the Maly Drama Theatre (St. Petersburg)

Shakespeare: King Lear

Director: Lev Dodin

Theatre performance in Russian with Hungarian surtitles.

A joint programme with the National Theatre.

Lev Dodin (1944) is currently perhaps the most influential figure in Russian theatre. Since 1967 he has taught acting and stage directing at the St Petersburg Theatre Institute and many of his former students now also enjoy international reputation. He has been directing in the Maly Teatr of St Petersburg since 1975 and has been its artistic director since 1983. He regularly holds master courses in many places around the world, from the United States to Japan. He has also staged a number of operas in the last decade or so.

In 2005 he added a Pro Cultura Hungarica Prize to his collection of Russian and international awards.

Since the enormous success of Gaudeamus in 1993 we have been able to see a number of his productions (mainly Chekhov) in Hungary.

March 27
National Theatre, 7.00 pm

Guest Performance of the Maly Drama Theatre (St. Petersburg)

Shakespeare: King Lear

Director: Lev Dodin

Theatre performance in Russian with Hungarian surtitles.

A joint programme with the National Theatre.

 “The great works are great because they contain within themselves all the contradictions of human life” – says Lev Dodin, who considers that there are two authors in world literature capable of giving drama at once a deeply personal and a universal perspective: Chekhov and Shakespeare. In Dodin’s work Shakespeare’s tragedies had to wait till 2006, when – after a multi-year Chekhov cycle – he plunged in with a production of King Lear. On this occasion too, the master of thorough analysis and great attention to detail was true to himself: his King Lear is the result of a rehearsal process lasting more than two and a half years.

“It is generally considered that this is the tragedy of a single person, of Lear. Personally, I have never agreed with that: the protagonists are held together in a strict system, the mutual dependence of kinship bonds (...). But how can such a noble-hearted father have such evil and ungrateful daughters? And if the father is so good, could it be that his daughters are not evil either?” Lev Dodin builds up the stage world of King Lear around this basic question, using shades of black and white.

March 29
National Theatre – Studio Stage, 7.00 pm

Guest Performance of the St.-Petersburg State Drama Theatre “Priut Сomedianta”

“It is not Hamlet”
Based on Dismorphomania by Vladimir Sorokin

Director: Andrei Moguchi

Stage sets and costumes: Emil Kapeljus

Lighting: Denis Solntsev

Video: Alexandr Malusev

Sound: Andrei Sizintsev

With the “Strah uydert” (Fear will go away) punk group.

Theatre performance in Russian with Hungarian simultaneous interpretation.

A joint programme with the National Theatre.

 After Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Heiner Müller’s Hamlet/Machine, Andrei Moguchi again turns his attention to the Danish prince, but this time the stage text is based on Vladimir Sorokin’s Dismorphomania. We can state without hesitation that the writer’s linguistic directness evoking extreme emotions and the provocative solutions of the director known for his rather unusual approach to the theatre are an excellent match on the stage, although it is worth knowing that at the Moscow premiere the author created a stir by walking out of the auditorium.

Moguchi generally gives a snapshot of the present state of culture, his productions reflect the given moment. It’s not Hamlet is a grotesque and ironic protest against the commercialisation of the theatre and the rule of mass-produced stars; contemporary total theatre with video installation and punk music.

We can expect an exciting and unusual theatre evening!

The performance is recommended for persons over 16 and with strong nerves.

April 4
National Theatre, 7.00 pm

Guest Performance of the Teatr Narodowy

Ferenc Molnár: The Boys of Paul Street

Director: Michał Zadara

Theatre performance in Polish with Hungarian surtitles.

A joint programme with the National Theatre.

 April 5
National Theatre, 7.00 pm

Guest Performance of the Teatr Narodowy

Ferenc Molnár: The Boys of Paul Street

Director: Michał Zadara

Theatre performance in Polish with Hungarian surtitles.

A joint programme with the National Theatre.

 Jazz

April 2
Palace of Arts – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, 8.00 pm

Nigel Kennedy Quintet

A Unique Musical Journey of One of the World's Greatest Violinists

World famous British virtuoso Nigel Kennedy has enjoyed huge popularity for over 25 years and is unquestionably one of the greatest violinists of all times. Thanks to a brilliant technique, exceptional talent and radiant personality, he is equally at home in classical and contemporary music and jazz. On his visit to Budapest, he and his quintet take us on a journey inspired by jazz, folk and world music.

Crossover

March 20
Millenáris Teátrum, 7.30 pm

Capricious Express

Joint concert of the Capriccio Chamber Orchestra and CimbaliBand Balkan Project

With: Réka Joó – flute

Prize-winners of the 2008 Budapest Fringe Festival

Folk music, folk dance

April 2
Thália Theatre, 7.00 pm

The Dancing Master

Dance play in one act.

Editor – director: Jolán Foltin

With: Honvéd Dance Theatre

Music: Hegedős Ensemble

Choreographers: Anikó Béres, Péter Ertl, Jolán Foltin, Gyöngyvér Hortobágyi, Szabolcs Lengyel, Tibor Makovínyi – members of the Honvéd Dance Theatre’s former creative studio

Costumes: Zsuzsa Imrik

Production manager: Ferenc Novák

This evening is an entertaining, ironic evocation of the beginnings of the profession of dancing master, the atmosphere of old village dancing schools and the mutual influence of traditional dances and fashionable society dances

April 3
Thália Theatre, 7.30 pm

Budapest Gypsy Symphony Orchestra

The 100-Member Gypsy Orchestra is the only ensemble of its kind in the world. With its high standard performance of Hungarian and Gypsy music and classical music arranged for Gypsy orchestra, since its formation the ensemble has been an ambassador for music and culture, giving over 1000 concerts in venues ranging from houses of culture in the smallest settlements of Hungary to many of the world’s famous concert halls.

 April 4
Papp László Budapest Sportarena, 10.00 am

28th National Dance House Gathering and Arts and Crafts Fair

The National Dance House Gathering and Arts and Crafts Fair is a festival of folk music, folk dance and folk art, with the participation of amateur and professional performers, children’s and adult folk dance ensembles, music school students and traditional folk artists, representing the Hungarian people of the Carpathian Basin and the ethnic minorities of Hungary.

April 5
Papp László Budapest Sportarena, 10.00 am

28th National Dance House Gathering and Arts and Crafts Fair

The Arts and Crafts Fair is closely associated with the Dance House Gathering, bringing together the traditional production of objects with the fine and applied arts drawing on those traditions, old and new objects, the aesthetics of the functional.

Dance

March 24
Palace of Arts – Festival Theatre, 7.00 pm

Trey McIntyre Project

I. Ephemeral Composition
Music: Violent Femmes

II. Leatherwing Bat
Music: “Peter, Paul and Mommy“

III. A Day In The Life
Music: The Beatles

Choreography: Trey McIntyre

Since his first work debuted with the Houston Ballet in 1990 at the age of 20, Trey McIntyre has created more than 75 contemporary ballets, for The Washington Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Stuttgart Ballet and Houston Ballet, among many companies.  Trey McIntyre Project premiered in 2004 as a summer company with a hand-selected group of America’s most talented ballet dancers and immediately won over the hearts of audience and critics alike at the major summer festivals, including Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and Wolf Trap. Using classical ballet as the point of departure, Trey McIntyre creates emotionally charged dances that defy categorization, set to musical scores ranging from Beethoven and Henry Cowell, to Beck, The Beatles, and Ralph Stanley.  Trey McIntyre Project is proud to make its debut with an evening of dances bursting with dazzling creativity and heightened physicality.

 March 25
Palace of Arts – Festival Theatre, 7.00 pm

Trey McIntyre Project

I. Ephemeral Composition
Music: Violent Femmes

II. Leatherwing Bat
Music: “Peter, Paul and Mommy“

III. A Day In The Life
Music: The Beatles

Choreography: Trey McIntyre

“Trey McIntyre who has the looks of a film star was not even 30 when leading companies in America and Europe had already danced more than 60 of his choreographies. Four years ago he organised a summer tour with hand-picked dancers. Following the enormous success the group became a permanent company. Their Beatles music is an emotional journey: fresh, simple and very witty. It is sure to conquer Budapest too.”

March 26
Palace of Arts – Festival Theatre, 7.00 pm

Trey McIntyre Project

I. Ephemeral Composition
Music: Violent Femmes

II. Leatherwing Bat
Music: “Peter, Paul and Mommy“

III. A Day In The Life
Music: The Beatles

Choreography: Trey McIntyre

PLeatherwing Bat has been created for six dancers to the music of Peter, Paul & Mary. The figures of the graceful but powerful, long-legged John Michael Schert, and the challenging, teasing Brett Perry represent the complicated process of adolescence. Perry stands apart from his cheerful fellows, his arms wrapped tightly around his torso as he turns his melancholy gaze ahead in lonely longing; Schert is a more self-confident, independent type. Optimistic camaraderie also plays an important part in the piece: his fellows try to pull Perry out of his daze in the physical sense too, in the dance their arms create a human protective net offering security.

“Almost four decades after the break-up of the legendary foursome, in this crossover piece McIntyre draws on all the tools available to ballet for an incredibly exciting evocation of their music and their behaviour. He uses original movements to bring out the emotions hidden in the song – the wild, the funny, the drug-induced melancholy that soar over both the street toughs and the classical dancers. … With stubbornly recurring, brilliant spins.”

March 31
Palace of Arts – Festival Theatre, 7.00 pm

The National Theatre Ballet in Prague

Solo for Three
Music: Jacques Brel, Vladimir Vysockij, Karel Kryl

Idea, choreography, direction: Petr Zuska

Dancers: Soloists and company of the Prague National Theatre Ballet

Music: Jacques Brel, Vladimir Visotsky, Karel Kryl

Stage sets: Jan Dušek

Costumes: Lucie Loosová

Lighting: Petr Zuska, Pavel Kremlík

Sound: Zbyněk Perla

Ballet masters: Veronika Iblová, Jan Kodet

Artistic director: Petr Zuska

Czech translation: Jiří Dědeček

“Our Guest the Czech Republic”

 Three singing poets, three lonely artists, three sensitive people. Three different cultures, three different personalities, three different fates. Although their languages are different, the three creative artists are closely related in their manner of musical expression and their lyrical sensitivity. Beyond its narrative character, Solo for Three is a bizarre mosaic of flashback images and visions evoking mainly the features of Jacques, Vladimir and Karel. The figure emerging from the fragments bears the features of all three: an original personality incapable of compromise, respecting life above all, humour combined with measureless sorrow and loneliness, and murderous depression alternating with enormously fruitful, unbounded energy.

April 1
Palace of Arts – Festival Theatre, 7.00 pm

The National Theatre Ballet in Prague

“Czech Ballet Symphony”

D. M. J. 1953–1977

Music: Antonín Dvořák, Bohuslav Martinů, Leoš Janáček

Choreography: Petr Zuska

Maria's Dream

Music: Camille Saint-Saëns, Cesare Pugni, Choreography: Petr Zuska

Sinfonietta

Music: Leoš Janáček

Choreography: Jiří Kylián

“Our Guest the Czech Republic”

 D. M. J. 1953–1977

“The title of the performance representing the initials of the names of three great Czech composers – Antonín Dvořák, Bohuslav Martinů and Leoš Janáček – D.M.J. 1953 –1977 is in reality the inscription on the tomb of a girl who died very young. There are places where something extraordinary happens to us several times in the course of our life, and there are moments of grace when we can experience the throbbing of the universe in our veins, feel the direct presence of God and come face to face with ourselves.

The place can be a mountain range, a desert, a rock in the ocean, but it can also be a cemetery, the grave of a young girl where the shock of the inscription suddenly awakens the viewer to the reality of death.”

Maria’s dream

“The piece aims to translate a dream from the language of poetry to the language of dance, a dream of Maria Taglioni, one of the outstanding figures in the history of ballet, the queen of the romantic, that the artist recounted to a psychologist in London in 1847. The dream that is also recorded in detail in her memoirs gives us a glimpse into the innermost corners of the soul of Taglioni, a woman who was far ahead of her age in so many respects. It is at once metamorphosis, absurdity, fragile lyricism, coarse humour and prophetic vision. The work is actually a blend of two largely independent ballets: the artist’s famous Grand Pas de Quatre, and The Dying Swan created many years after Maria’s death, demonstrating the special sensitivity of the virtuoso ballerina. Of course, it is possible that the artist would not fully agree with the above, but there can be no doubt that her refined, ethereal being is here among us, and smiling. Let us smile back at her.”

Sinfonietta

Each part of this five-part ballet is a dream-like vision based on folklore. The choreography achieves perfect harmony between dance and music and hovers on the borderline between realism and abstraction.

April 3
Palace of Arts – Festival Theatre, 7.00 pm

Bangarra Dance Theatre

True Stories

Choreography: Frances Rings, Elma Kris

Artistic director: Stephen Page

Bangarra Dance Theatre is one of Australia's most unique and innovative dance companies. Blending traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture with international contemporary dance, Bangarra creates a uniquely Australian dance language.

At the heart of Bangarra's uniqueness is the company's vision and commitment to a theatrical style that remains true to the indigenous spirit.

Bangarra means 'to make fire' in Wiradjeri language of NSW. The logo of Bangarra represents a flame; the headdress of a Torres Strait Island warrior; the point of a spear used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island hunters. The company belongs in the international vanguard and regularly appears at top world events.

 April 4
Palace of Arts – Festival Theatre, 7.00 pm

Bangarra Dance Theatre

True Stories

Choreography: Frances Rings, Elma Kris

Artistic director: Stephen Page

The Bangarra Dance Theatre is the best known company popularising Australian indigenous traditions; with the high artistic standard of its productions it has won a prominent place not only in Australia but throughout the world. From a small, community-based group the company representing Australian culture rooted in indigenous traditions in a way unlike any other contemporary company, has grown dramatically in size, in creative output, in financial and human resources and in popularity with audiences, by consciously blending the power of traditions with contemporary trends.

 April 5
Palace of Arts – Festival Theatre, 7.00 pm

Bangarra Dance Theatre

True Stories

Choreography: Frances Rings, Elma Kris

Artistic director: Stephen Page

The company’s aim was to respect and energise the link between indigenous cultures of Australia and contemporary artistic forms of expression, by maintaining the integrity of tradition while exploring the endless inspiration of dance and in doing so it has created a new dance theatre form. The success of these efforts can be seen in the company’s international recognition and the great response to its productions.

 Exhibitions

March 19
Hungarian National Museum

27th Hungarian Press Photo Exhibition

March 20–April 26

March 20
National Széchényi Library

The Contemporary Czech Republic

March 20–April 20

March 20
Makett Labor

Urban Glasshouses

March 20–April 20

March 20
Vízivárosi Gallery

Play Art

March 20–April 10

March 20
Nádor Gallery

Vision

March 20–April 30

March 20
Csók István Gallery

Prague–Budapest

March 20–April 3

March 20
Museum of Fine Arts, 3.00 pm

Alfons Mucha exhibition

„Our Guest the Czech Republic”

March 20–June 7

March 21
Korridor Gallery

15 years of an international artists’ colony

March 21–April 15

March 21
Museum of Applied Arts, 3.00 pm

„Haydn and the time”

Travel in space and time in the age of Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

March 21–April 5

The exhibition marking the anniversary of the composer’s death to be held in the Museum of Applied Arts as part of the 2009 Budapest Spring Festival takes its title from a Haydn work composed in 1794, the D major symphony, popularly known as the Clock Symphony (Op. No. 101). The Budapest Museum of Applied Arts evokes the figure of Haydn, who also composed a melody for musical clocks, through the material culture of his age, among others with the characteristic clock types of distinctive shape and structure.

Haydn’s career spanned a very wide space and time; he travelled to many countries of Europe, visiting places from simply country homes to the most splendid royal courts. The long period extending from his birth to his death – with artistic styles ranging from Rococo, to neo-Classicism and Empire – is also known as the Age of Enlightenment.

The exhibition invites visitors on an imaginary journey to the 18th century, an age of inventions and discoveries. Besides the Encyclopaedia edited by Diderot that summed up the world picture of the time, many treasures selected from the museum’s collection evoke the period. An emblematic object of the century was the clock combining several different genres: it is a complex masterpiece in itself and as an instrument for measuring time is also a philosophical concept. The many different types presented in the exhibition – including a number of rarities – are arranged in territorial groups. Linked to the exhibition is a selection of exclusive contemporary timepieces from the collection of the IWC company of Schaffhausen titled “Luxury watches from Switzerland”.

A series of music programmes will accompany the visual experience of the applied art masterpieces. Visitors to the exhibition can enjoy chamber concerts of music by Haydn and his contemporaries.

March 22
Pataky Gallery

"ART MINOR" from the GYÍK children’s art studio

March 22–April 10

March 24
Karinthy Salon

Rites and Rhythms

March 24–April 17

March 24
Vármegye Gallery

Inclusive Transylmania

March 24–May 26

March 25
Inda Gallery

Through children’s eyes

March 25–April 17

March 25
Mednyánszky Gallery

The Pest Inner City through children’s eyes

March 25–April 8

March 25
Nessim Gallery, 7.00 pm

Photo exhibition of Ivo Přeček

„Our Guest the Czech Republic”

March 25–April 25

March 26
Gallery of the Polish Institute

Whispering

March 26–April 30

March 26
Hungarian National Gallery

Művészház 1909–1914 – Modern Exhibitions in Budapest

March 27–May 17

March 26
Museum of Textile and Clothing Industry

Kéz–Rá–Tét – History of Estonian gloves

March 26–April 30

March 26
Friss Gallery

"20 years of systemic change"

March 26–May 9

March 26
Artitude Gallery, 6.00 pm

The best of the Czech contemporary art – Exhibition of Chalupecký–priced

„Our Guest the Czech Republic”

March 26–April 19

March 27
Kunsthalle

Mee Vida – Heaven and Hell – the experience of life reflected in art objects from the MUSAC collection

March 27–May 17

March 27
Bajor Gizi Actor Museum

Special theatre events through children’s eyes – Works exhibited in children’s drawing competitions

March 27–June 27

March 27
Bajor Gizi Actor Museum

Images by Viktor Kronbauer theatre photographer

March 27–June 27

March 27
Millenáris Park, 2.00 pm

Czech Republic from Hungarians’ aspect

„Our Guest the Czech Republic”

March 20–April 7

March 29
Palace of Arts, 6.00 pm

Hommage á Bohuslav Martinů

„Our Guest the Czech Republic”

March 20–April 6

April 2
Mai Manó House, 6.00 pm

Identity of Young Czech Women Photographers – Contemporary Czech Photo Exhibition

„Our Guest the Czech Republic”

April 2–May 2

Through Children's Eyes

March 21
Palace of Arts – Festival Theatre, 3.00 pm

Music-Dance-ABC

Performance by Tamás Vásáry (piano) and Henriett Tunyogi (dance)

From Scarlatti to Bartók

Tamás Vásáry is both pianist and conductor, recipient of the most prestigious awards. He attaches great importance to giving young people an appreciation of classical music. This led him to establish the Zoltán Kodály Youth World Orchestra two years ago. His wife, Henriett Tunyogi, is a worthy companion in his efforts. She enjoys talking to children about her career, initiating young people into the workshop secrets and enchanting world of ballet. What path leads someone from the first steps to becoming a real ballet star?

March 22
Railway Museum, 11.00 am

Opera Through Children’s Eyes

Haydn: Philemon und Baucis

Narrator: Balázs Kovalik

Conductor: Konstantia Gourzi

With: Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok

The work was created for the puppet theatre and first performed in 1773 on the occasion of the visit to Eszterháza by Empress Maria Theresa who sincerely enjoyed the performance. It is based on the archetypical story of the old couple unable to live without each other.

March 22
Millenáris Teátrum, 3.00 pm

Brass Cirkus

With: Csaba Méhes and the Brass in the Five

Prize-winners of the 2008 Budapest Fringe Festival.

 An exhilarating circus performance under the direction of a meddling ringmaster who, as a daring instrument tamer, tames five brass instruments and then entertains the public with the most amazing tricks: he transforms the trumpets into horses, makes the trombone fly in the air, and he even dares to put his head into the “mouth” of the fearsome tuba. The famous Hungarian mime artist, Csaba Méhes and Hungary’s best brass quintet, Brass in the Five have created what is perhaps today the most original musical theatre production for children, combining the noblest circus tradition with exceptional musical quality. It is not by chance that the Brass Circus won the professional prize at the 2008 Budapest Fringe Festival and the special prize of the Children’s Jury. Although the performance is intended for the youngest age group, experience shows that the parents and grandparents enjoy it at least as much as the children – perhaps even more.

 March 28
Petőfi Literary Museum, 11.00 am

Dragonfly – programme of music and literature

April 4
Petőfi Literary Museum, 5.00 pm

Parafónia Orchestra

“Music is spiritual food and cannot be substituted by anything else. Whoever does not partake from it will live and die in a state of spiritual anaemia. There are regions of the soul which can be illuminated only through music.” (Zoltán Kodály)

Leader of the orchestra: Réka Fabinyi

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Parafónia, an orchestra composed of mentally handicapped children and adults, has been operating for close to ten years. The ensemble plays mainly classical music, special arrangements of the works of great composers.

Special treats

March 21
Millenáris Teátrum, 8.00 pm

Orchestra Baobab

Afro-Cuban rhythms, Portuguese Creole melodies, Congolese rumba, highlife music

The legendary African Orchestra Baobab is one of the world’s most renowned and unusual ensembles. The Senegalese group formed in 1970 revolutionised its country’s music life, giving rise to a sparkling big city music scene also in the capital, Dakar. Baobab notched up more hits in its first ten years than many other groups achieve in a lifetime.

Sidelined for a while in their own country by the impetus they had generated, the group split up in 1985 but later bowed to the pressure of their international fans and 2001 saw the triumphant rebirth of Baobab. The group is once again on the top of the charts.

“When I arrived in Senegal in 1968, all I could hear everywhere was Cuban music,” recalls Barthélemy Attisso, Baobab’s guitarist from Togo. “Back home we had been listening to Nigerian highlife and guitar music from Congo, but in Dakar Cuban music was played in all the clubs … Moreover it wasn’t played by Cubans, they were all Senegalese!”

 March 23
Palace of Arts – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, 8.00 pm

Max Raabe & Palast Orchester

“Tonight or never!”

Fantastic, indescribably frenetic performance

The story began in a pizza place in North Berlin, where a whole group led by Max Raabe – the members of what was later to be the Palastorchester – decided to play the greatest dance and film music of the 1920s and 1930s in their own interpretation. A piano, guitar, sousaphone and drums add to the orchestra’s basic sound.

What do Oops, I did it again, Let's talk about sex and Sex bomb have in common? Max Raabe. During the festival many people can see for themselves this crazy fellow who arranges and sings today’s hits in the style of the twenties and thirties. Brilliant and very funny!

 March 24
Palace of Arts – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, 7.30 pm

Cantor concert

"Voice & Music in the Shtetl"

A musical tour in the world of klezmer with cantors as guides.

With: Moshe Schulhof, Tsudik Greenwald, Yaakov Rosenfeld, Shlomo Glick, David Weinbach – voice, Budapest Klezmer Band (artistic director: Ferenc Jávori)

Film: Moshe Alafi

Production: Levie Kanes

This show showcases songs performed by Cantors, music performed by a Klezmer band and video displays. The play is set in a Hungarian town. The narrator Shmuel is the son of the town’s former Rabbi. After his father’s death he returns to see what has happened to the place he grew up in and the synagogue he knew so well. He finds that nothing is left of the synagogue but a chest of relics. His exploration of its contents is accompanied by the Cantors, representing voices from the Jewish past. His nostalgic stories of life in the Jewish community in Hungary are brought to life by music and videos. This performance will be of interest to a wide audience of music lovers, both those familiar with Jewish cantorial music and those interested in widening their horizons; it will also appeal to audiences interested in history, as it provides a glimpse of the Jewish past in Hungary.