Two exhibitions will open before the concert. The music historian Máté Mesterházy will open Gustav Mahler and Vienna at the Herman Museum, and the painter Ágnes Máger will open Bartók With The Eyes of a Graphic Artist ? a show organised with the Miskolc Gallery ? in the lobby of the Miskolc National Theatre.
?This year?s festival is a message, or rather an introduction, before Hungary takes the revolving European Union presidency in 2011,? said the festival?s managing director Tamás Bátor.
The programme features 65 productions, including 26 operas, five ballets and 23 concerts between June 9 and 20. The artists participating at the festival come from 27 countries around Europe.
The Rage of Life, a new opera by the Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin, will be among the highlights of the festival. Budapest Operetta Theatre director Gábor Miklós Kerényi will bring a production of Bartók?s Bluebeard?s Castle to Miskolc, and the Csokonai Theatre of Debrecen will perform Ferenc Erkel's Bánk Bán. The Hungarian State Opera of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, will present Sarolt. Wallenberg, an opera by the contemporary Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tuur will also be on the programme.
Miskolc, once a centre of heavy industry under communism, has become well known for its Bartók + ... opera festival, which it is organising for the tenth year in a row. Bartók is always on the festival bill, but a different composer or theme shares the spotlight each year.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
