Festival musical advisor Gergely Kesselyák said Puccini's Turnadot had not been performed in Szeged since 1989. Next year's performance will mark the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth, he added.
Operas can continue to be part of the Open-Air Festival only if they draw more people, especially young people; and for this aim, Turnadot is the ideal work, said Kesselyák, who will direct the opera.
Enikő Eszenyi's outstanding production of Imre Kálmán's Countess Maritza will be performed for the second year in a row in 2008.
Kesselyák said musicals are a sensitive matter for any artistic director, as they are sometimes considered a "business" compared to other, perhaps more worthy, works. But next year's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream promises to be both an artistic and a business success because of its creators, he said. The great Gypsy Jazz musician Béla Szakcsi Lakatos has written the music for the musical and singer-songwriter Péter Müller Sziámi has written the libretto. The production will be staged with the cooperation of the Budapest Operetta Theatre under the direction of Gábor Kerényi Miklós.
István the King, the best known Hungarian rock opera, will be performed by winners of public television broadcaster Magyar Televízió's talent show The Company. The production will premiere in Budapest, on a set designed for the Szeged Open-Air Festival. Afterward, it will come to Szeged.
This year's Szeged Open-Air Festival drew 70,000 people. About 96pc of tickets were sold, generating revenue of almost HUF 300 million.
Szeged Open-Air Festival director Edina Bátyai said there were full houses at eleven of this year's 18 productions. There was enormous demand for tickets to productions of Cats, Countess Maritza and the Anatolia Turkish dance ensemble. Between 90pc and 95pc of tickets for productions of the opera Bánk Bán and the musical Rudolf were sold.
Tickets for next year's festival will go on sale in September, Bátyai said.
Szeged mayor László Botka said the local council voted in July to provide the festival's budget for not one, but a further three years, ensuring its continued success.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
