Miskolc, once a centre of heavy industry under communism, has become well known for its Bartók + ... opera festival, which it is organising for the ninth time this year. Bartók is always on the festival bill, but a different composer or theme shares the spotlight each year.
The compositions of Haydn will feature prominently on the programme of Bartók+Vienna 2009, this being the Haydn anniversary year, said festival director Támas Bátor. Two of Haydn's 24 operas will be performed: L'infedeltá delusa, directed by Csaba Káel, and La canterina, directed by Attila Toronyköy. Both operas were written while Haydn was the court musician for the noble Hungarian Esterházy family.
Several of Mozart's operas will be on the festival programme, as it would be impossible not to focus on the composer's works, Bátor said. In addition to The Marriage of Figaro, performed by the Bucharest National Opera, Mozart's opera Apollo and Hyacinthus, will be sung by Moscow's Helikon Opera, and Bastien et Bastienne, which Mozart composed when he was just twelve years old, will be performed with the cooperation of the Musica Iuvenalis ensemble from Kosice, Slovakia. The music school of the University of Szeged will bring the rarely seen L'oca del Cairo to the stage.
The Bratislava National Theatre will bring Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos to the festival, and the director Giorgio Pressburger will stage a premiere of Schönberg's Moses and Aaron with Hungary's National Philharmonic Orchestra.
Other operas on the programme are Alban Berg's Lulu, which Hungarian audiences have not had a chance to see in 50 years. The German Gerai State Theatre will perform Berg's other great opera, Woyzeck, in Miskolc.
Of course, the festival would not be complete without a production of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, by the National Theatre of Szeged, directed Tamás Juronics.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
