The Budapest Spring Festival has become Hungary's most prestigious cultural event, minister in charge of local governments Zoltán Varga said at the festival's first official event on Friday, the opening of an exhibition entitled PowerGames at the Ludwig Museum. Crown Prince of DenmarkFrederik and his wife also attended the event.
The spring festival was originally devised to boost tourism in the run-up to the summer season, and it has done exactly that, Varga said. The guest of honour at this year's festival is Denmark, from where about a hundred thousand people visit Hungary every year, he added.
Budapest Mayor and festival host Gábor Demszky said the Budapest Spring Festival fulfils an important cultural mission. He noted that a few years ago, it was awarded a European cultural prize for bearing an intermediary role between East and West.
"Starting today, Budapest presents a series of Hungarian and international concerts, theatre and dance performances to all guests," Demszky said. He said the festival budget for 2010 was HUF 1.2bn, slightly less than last year, with 48 percent coming from the state and the city of Budapest.
At the opening of the PowerGames exhibition, Minister of Education and Culture István Hiller said that the coming period of more than one year would offer an exceptional opportunity for Hungarian culture, thanks to the Pécs2010 European Capital of Culture programme and the European Union presidency that Hungary will take in the first half of next year.
"Culture and science are Hungary's most attractive facets and the spring festival over the past three decades added a unique colour to this facet," Hiller said.
Despite its "cold" title, PowerGames includes unique works by contemporary Danish artists that will not only enrich but also cheer up visitors, Hiller said.
Danish Minister of Culture Per Stig Moller opened the programme series Denmark Our Guest and expressed appreciation of Hungarian cultural life, noting the many important figures the country had produced in the areas of classical music and literature.
"What's even more important is that they have their own unique national style," he added.
Director of the Ludwig Museum (LUMÚ) Barnabás Bencsik expressed thanks to the festival organisers for choosing Denmark as this year's honorary guest.
"We got the opportunity to work together with artists of a country where we have been following the art scene for quite some time," Bencsik said.
