Eliconie

The Hungarian State Opera proudly presents its new (2015/16) season dedicated to William Shakespeare. It once more exceeds all expectationsand is worthy of any opera house or cultural institute in the world. Together with our recently reopened second venue, the Erkel Theatre, the Opera offers more programmes than ever.

We offer a fascinating range of programmes for lovers of opera, ballet and classical music. While we keep over 40 operas on the repertoire, we prepare with 30 premičres including such popular pieces as Werther, The Queen of Sheba, Il trovatore or Die Walküre presented in new versions. The 2015/16 season starts with a new staging of Otello and in accordance with our traditions, ends with a baroque piece: The Fairy Queen by Purcell.

Besides our internationally acclaimed soloist such as Eszter Sümegi, Ildikó Komlósi, István Kovácsházi, Andrea Rost, Erika Miklósa or Gábor Bretz, a guest at the Metropolitan Opera in 2015, a list of international stars, Edita Gruberová, Linda Watson, Tomasz Konieczny, Anja Kampe, Tómas Tómasson, Marcus Jupither, Ildebrando D’Arcangelo and many more are to appear on stage of the Opera House and the Erkel Theatre in Budapest.

The Hungarian State Opera is also the home of the Hungarian National Ballet and the oldest orchestra in Hungary, the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra – the orchestra of the Opera (established in 1853). The Hungarian National Ballet prepares with a brand new staging of The Sleeping Beauty, the Hungarian premičre of Johan Inger’s Walking Mad, and a new version of The Nutcracker choreographed by Wayne Eagling and ballet director Tamás Solymosi while keeping many other popular productions on their repertoire. The Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra gives 10 concerts throughout the season led by excellent guest conductors like Alexander Lazarev, Paul Goodwin, Lawrence Foster and John Fiore, or its chairman-conductor, Pinchas Steinberg.

Apart from producing operas, ballet performances and concerts, the Hungarian State Opera also organizes more than 50 special events to commemorate different occasions and are aimed at different generations, different walks of life. A highlight of the Shakespeare Season, a charity event entitled Shakespeare Ball is organized with special guest star Plácido Domingo, who sings on the stage of the Budapest Opera House for the first time.

The closing event of the season is entitled Shakespeare400+ Festival, which aims to present the most concentrated event of this season on the 400th anniversary of the death of the English playwright. Several brilliant pieces based on the works of Shakespeare can be seen (among them the premičre of The Tempest by Adčs), with a rarity concert by the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and a song recital by Bryn Terfel to conclude the series that spans over two weeks featuring international guest singers like Ivan Magri, Franco Pomponi, Ambrogio Maestri, Lado Ataneli as well as guest conductors: Stefan Soltész, Benjamin Bayl, Marcus Bosch, Renato Palumbo, Christian Badea, Gareth Jones, Dominic Wheeler and Arthur Fagen.

Hungarian State Opera
Address: H-1061 Budapest, Andrássy út 22.
Postal address: 1373 Budapest, P.O. Box 503
http://www.opera.hu/