Kaposfest Off to Roaring Start

The concert, which featured works by Schubert, Ravel, Debussy, Massenet and Shostakovich, took place on Tuesday. The festival will run until next Monday.

 

Kaposfest is expected to draw 15,000 visitors, but the 14 concerts will be broadcast on public radio to a potential audience of 80 million listeners.

 

Szita said the past three years have shown that ?it does not pay to make something mediocre?, adding that Kaposfest could flesh out an international profile in just a year or two.

 

The opera singer Ilona Tokody, who came to Kaposvár at the invitation of artistic director Katalin Kokas, said Kaposfest was the only festival she had been to anywhere in the world where all that mattered was music and art.

 

?We can be a part of world-class concerts, and the audiences are wonderful,? she said.

 

The violinist Barnabás Kelemen said the festival organisers were already making plans for 2013 and 2014. Many musicians have promised to return and new additions are sure to be made too, he added.

 

Chief organiser György Bolyki said the success of the festival was based on the participation of such world-class artists as Kokas, Kelemen, Zoltán Kocsis, Ivry Gitlis, Alina Ibragimova, Nicolas Altsteadt and Jonathan Cohen. He also acknowledged the city?s contribution to the festival?s achievements.

 

Among the complimentary events at this year?s Kaposfest are film screenings that highlight the ties between music and cinema, a performance by the Bolyki Soul and Gospel Choir, an exhibition of portraits by the local son Juan Gyenes, who was the photographer to the Spanish royal court, and a show of pieces from the Esterházy collection.

 

For further details, visit www.kaposfest.hu and www.facebook.com/kaposfest.hu

 

Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)