BARTÓK PLUS OPERA FESTIVAL

3Bartóks

Last year we had the opportunity to see Bartók’s plays from the viewpoint of one director in a single performance. This year Bartók’s three works are on stage again, but from three different viewpoints by three different companies:

Bluebeard’s Castle is performed by the Hungarian Opera of Cluj (Kolozsvár)

The Miraculous Mandarin performed by the Sibiu Ballet Theatre (Nagyszeben)

The Wooden Prince performed by G.G. Dance, Eger

Popular Operas of the Future?

Key to the Future: the opera writing competition ventures to find new authors with fresh and innovative view on the genre hoping to create the popular opera of our age. Bartók Plus talents are first introduced in 2013.

Three of the operas submitted for the competition chosen by an international jury will be presented to the public in “performance readings”. The most beautiful sections of these works will also be performed in a Gala Concert. The winning opera, selected by the jury and the votes by the audience will be staged as a full opera performance at Bartók Plus 2014 next year.

Opening Night Performances

János Vajda’s one-act opera twins, Don Perlimplin and Don Cristobal were inspired by Federico Garcia Lorca. The same story: the love of an elderly man and a young girl is told from two different points of view: one is sad and the other is funny – in a joint production of Bartók Plus and the Csokonai Theatre, Debrecen.

György Orbán’s Bűvölet (Charm) is brought to the stage by the Hungarian Opera of Cluj (Kolozsvár). The story is set in the last days of self-destructive Rome. The characters struggle between false strategies for survival, and astounding events make them realize how beauty and justice interdependent.

“The most contemporary of the contemporaries” Sára Iván is the youngest author of Bartók Plus 2013. She is only seventeen. In her opera-operetta Ez történt Bécsben (That's what happened in Vienna) she evokes the atmosphere of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

Beyond Bartók

Special among the compositions “Beyond Bartók” is Juno and Avos, performed by the Alexey Rybnikov Company from Moscow. The play was banned in the Soviet Union for years.

The Liberec Theatre from the Czech Republic brings Jules Massenet’s Don Quichotte to Miskolc. This piece is a colourful mosaic; beauty wandering among different musical genres. The story is a journey through the extremes of emotion, from deep melancholy to unconditional happiness.

Opera for Thousands

The festival testified to its new slogan with the Tosca performances at the Avas Lookout Tower last year. The project aiming to attract new audiences proved to be an enormous success; more than three thousand people came to visit the show. “Opera for Thousands” at Bartók Plus 2013 will brings us another ‘bestseller’ of world opera literature. Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, in a free open-air performance, in far from ordinary setting. Its best-known tunes, like the Champagne-aria, are for all of us who seek community experience in music.

Concert-Promenade

Many say the Carmina Burana is the most popular “serious” musical piece ever written. Carl Orff’s opus is considered to be the anthem for wine and love. It offers exhilarating experience even for those who are not yet familiar with the world of classical music.

During the festival the Miskolc Symphony Orchestra, a regular contributor to the performances invites us to Promenade Concerts. These free concerts offer a variety of well-known waltzes, overtures, polkas and marches for those who prefer the more relaxed atmosphere of these events.

Introducing the city’s youngest talents in the festival programme is one of the best traditions in the history of Bartók Plus. This year the Fazekas Children’s Choirs and Orchestra will appear in concert in the Calvinist Church in Kossuth Street.