Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini… Could anyone possibly require a grander list of opera composers worthy of opening a new venue for opera performance and greeting the new season? Excerpts with piano accompaniment were performed by two dozen soloists and the Opera Chorus in the Locomotive Hall of the Eiffel Art Studios on 7 September 2020. The event was also streamed live on Facebook.
Although the global pandemic forced the Hungarian State Opera to close its doors for a few months, which entailed a delay in the opening of the Eiffel Art Studios, the institute now followed up on the August inauguration of the facility’s park by celebrating the new building complex’s completion in its imposing Locomotive Hall.
This was done together with the Opera's very finest singers – Aleaxandru Agache, Péter Balczó, Gabriella Balga, Gergely Boncsér, Csilla Boross, Gábor Bretz, Krisztián Cser, Attila Fekete, Erika Gál, Zsolt Haja, Péter Kálmán, Mihály Kálmándy, Tivadar Kiss, Ildikó Komlósi, István Kovács, István Kovácsházi, Boldizsár László, Gabriella Létay Kiss, Zoltán Megyesi, Erika Miklósa, András Palerdi, Rita Rácz, Eszter Sümegi, Tibor Szappanos, Andrea Szántó, Csaba Szegedi, Zita Szemere, János Szerekován and Zita Váradi –, who performed widely beloved and familiar arias from the Hungarian and European operatic canon, supplemented by excerpts from some of the contemporary Hungarian operas that the Opera has always cultivated, along with a few seldom-heard rarities. These will include, among other popular melodies, passages from Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Verdi’s Rigoletto and Ferenc Erkel’s Bánk Bán (The Viceroy Bánk), with one aria apiece also to be heard from Antônio Carlos Gomes’s opera Salvator Rosa, Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier and Levente Gyöngyösi’s The Master and Margarita. In two excerpts the Hungarian State Opera Chorus also made an appearance, featured on the piano were Katalin Doman, Pálma Hidegkuti, Balázs Kálvin, Ágnes Kovács, Kálmán Szennai, Sámuel Csaba Tóth and Bálint Zsoldos.
The performance can be viewed HERE.
Photo by Péter Rákossy