The Hungarian students participating in the programme - all from the Raoul Wallenberg Gymnasium and Trade School - are not from dance or music backgrounds, but average teenage secondary school students, said Tímea Eperjessy, the school's music instructor. Participants were chosen based on audition results, she added.
The programme, established in 1991 and then called Dix mois d'école et d'Opéra, aimed to expose young people to the world of opera, both on the stage and behind the scenes. In France, the programme focused on underprivileged young people.
After the EU enlargement, the programme took on an international aspect, involving young people from all around Europe.
During the ten-month programme Didier Grojsman and the choreographer Armelle Cornillon visited Budapest one weekend every month to practice with the 20 participants in the programme.
Grojsman, who is the production's musical director, said the Hungarian chorus would be a pillar of the performance on Friday as well as the following two days.
The performance will be a key event in the close of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue and the end of the French European Union presidency.
