The theme from Star Wars, An American in Paris, and excerpts from Leonard Bernstein’s operetta Candide will be performed at the concert titled Golden Age: American Beauty at the Opera House. The 18 May 2025 performance will feature iconic works by John Williams, Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Samuel Barber, and Charles Ives, interpreted by the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra. The gala tying in the OPERA’s Anglophone Season, will be conducted by American conductor Paul Connelly, with performances by opera singers Gabriella Balga and Eszter Zemlényi, pianist Gergő Zoltán Varga, and the Hungarian National Ballet.
One of the highlights of the concert is the iconic theme from the 1977 film Star Wars, composed by John Williams, who has received, among others, five Academy Awards and 26 Grammy Awards. The legendary Hollywood composer’s music evoking romantic and post-romantic influences such as Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Gustav Holst, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold has become one of the most recognizable leitmotifs in cinematic history.
Another major work on the programme is George Gershwin’s An American in Paris, composed in 1928 and inspired by the composer’s travels to France under the influence of Maurice Ravel. The work evokes the experiences of an American visitor in Paris, complete with street sounds and a French atmosphere. Gershwin’s composition later inspired the 1951 musical film of the same name, starring Gene Kelly, which concludes with a lavishly choreographed finale featuring the full piece.
Between these two well-known compositions, the audience will hear two popular concert excerpts from Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, a rarely performed operetta in Hungary, composed in 1956. Following the orchestral overture, soprano Eszter Zemlényi will perform Kunigunde’s virtuosic coloratura aria Glitter and Be Gay.
Before intermission, a special feature of the concert includes a ballet performance set to one of the evening’s musical pieces. Choreographed by András Lukács in 2010 under the title Whirlpool for the Hungarian National Ballet, the piece is set to the second movement of Philip Glass’s Tirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, composed in 2000 and based on music originally written for the 1998 film The Truman Show. This ballet will be performed for the first time with live musical accompaniment. Inspired by the tragic death of American author Virginia Woolf and the 2002 film The Hours – also scored by Glass – the dance performance features soloists Jessica Carulla Leon and Iurii Kekalo, with pianist Gergő Zoltán Varga, winner of the 1st Cziffra György National Piano Competition (2016) and the concerto category of the Los Angeles Liszt Competition.
The gala opens with three chamber music gems. Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, premiered in 1938 and based on the second movement of his string quartet, is widely known as a funeral piece but has also appeared in several films (e.g., The Elephant Man, Platoon, Amélie). Barber’s Dover Beach, composed for baritone and string quartet and inspired by the poem of the same name by Matthew Arnold, will be performed for the first time on a Hungarian stage, sung by opera singer Gabriella Balga.
The third opening piece is Charles Ives’s metaphysical composition The Unanswered Question, written in 1908. In this work, a solo trumpet repeatedly poses the eternal question of existence, while the woodwinds attempt – more and more impatiently and desperately – to answer it, ultimately in vain. The significance of the piece is underscored by the fact that Leonard Bernstein adopted its title for his memorable 1973 lecture series at Harvard University, in which he also analyzed Ives’s composition.
The Hungarian State Opera Orchestra will be conducted by American conductor Paul Connelly, who has worked for four decades in leading European and American opera houses as a ballet and opera conductor and in various concert productions. He has regularly conducted ballet performances at the Opera House since its reopening in 2022.
The Golden Age: American Beauty concert by the OPERA offers a rich and diverse selection from the finest works of 20th-century American composers, spanning virtually every genre from audience-friendly hits to profound, experimental creations.
