Around the Music Festival

The Hungarian State Opera will decide to perform New York in the fall of 2018 this year. Surprisingly the first US tour. The Hungarian State Opera operates a large renovation work in the 2018/2019 season, and the tour is a moving performances using that period. The National Opera is constructing a new theater “Eiffel Art Studios” for chamber music and indoor opera in the site of the station building in accordance with this renovation work. Theaters are 400 audience seats, aiming for simultaneous open and renewal of the opera.

The US tour is from 30th October to 11th November 2018. A total of 350 people enter the field, and will perform 4 operas and 3 ballets. David H. Koch Theater will be the venue for the performance. The theater is in the Lincoln Center, New York City Ballet, then used as the home of the New York City Opera.

The program is centered on Hungarian opera. It is the opera “Bank Ban” composed by Ferenc Erkel (1810 – 1893) that marks the start of the tour. Erkel is the first music director of the Royal Opera House and the first principal of the Royal Conservatory and a Hungarian national composer who also composes the Hungarian National Anthem (1844). “Bank Ban” was premiered in 1861 and was performed at the time of the season opening of the National Opera, of course, the US premiere.

The second opera is “The Queen of Sheba” written by Karl Goldmark (1830 – 1915). Goldmark is a Jewish composer from Hungary who studied composition by self-study while being influenced by Wagner. “The Queen of Sheba” is his most famous work, premiered in Vienna in 1875 and gained popularity, and the performance continued until 1938. In 1885, the premiere of the United States was realized, and had been performed until 1906 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

The remaining opera two works are “Mario and the Magician” premiered in 1988 by composer Hungarian contemporary composer Janos Vajda (1949 -) “Blue Beard’s Castle” composed by Bartok Baera (1881 – 1945) . “Blue Beard’s Castle” is a performance commemorating 100 years since the premiere in Budapest, “Mario and the Magician” who made the novel of Thomas Mann into opera will be premiered in the United States.

In addition to the classic works “Swan Lake” and “Don Quichotte”, Ballet performs contemporary works by Hans van Manen. Both opera and ballet, cast details are unpublished. Hungary’s leading Tenor singer Balthazar Larslow has decided to sing the leading role of “Bank Burn” and decorate the US debut.

Photo：Hungarian State Opera