L'enfant prodigue / La damoiselle élue / Sardanapalo

The great impressionist composer’s only opera (Pelléas et Mélisande) was recently awakened from a sleep of more than half a century by the Hungarian State Opera. Now two cantatas by Debussy are brought to the stage in the framework of one experimental production: La damoiselle élue has never been staged before, while L’enfant prodigue was last presented by the OPERA in a single run over a hundred years ago. These lyrical cantatas are self-contained short stories that enter into a peculiar dialogue with one another. In the second half of the evening, the first act of Franz Liszt’s only adult opera – left unfinished – is performed, following the research of Cambridge scholar Dr. David Trippett. The Liszt fragment inspired by a Berlioz cantata inspired by a Byron work inspired by a Delacroix painting had its world premiere in 2018, and so far it has been performed worldwide by only one German orchestra, the same ensemble that presented it in Budapest a few years ago. However, it has never before been staged; the right to do so was granted for the first time to the very institution that, 143 years ago, placed a statue of the Hungarian composer at the entrance of its main building: the Hungarian State Opera House. Debussy’s stage cantatas and Liszt’s large-scale operatic fragment are directed by Péter István Nagy, for whom this production will mark his debut in the genre. The musical director of the performance is conductor János Kovács, a devoted champion of Debussy, who also served as conductor of Pelléas and has previously conducted these two cantatas in concert performances.