Die Zauberflote is the joint production of the Hungarian State Opera and Vgsznhz (Comedy Theatre, Budapest). The peculiarity of this opera is that it is regarded as a masterpiece by both musical professionals and the audience, says dm Fischer, conductor of the production. With the Budapest staging we would like to enhance the suburban theatre feature of Die Zauberflote, mixing the advantages of theatre and opera. According to the director, Lszl Marton, his concept puts the process of becoming an adult in the centre.

Die Zauberflote for me is about a wonderful, playful, mysterious and very educating journey of two young persons a boy and a girl into adulthood. A journey from darkness into the light, from childhood into matureness. The way is full with hurdles, tests, secrets and temptations, and in the end the two main characters have to say farewell to their youth.


The brilliant cast, the wonderfully simple and elevated music of Mozart as well as the stage-setting of Canadian set designer Michael Levine guarantee a unique operatic experience and aims at impressing the young generation as well.

Performance Info

Times: Evenings @ 7.00pm

Modern Balett Abend

La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus), K. 621, is an opera seria composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with text after Metastasio. It was started after the bulk of The Magic Flute, the last opera that Mozart worked on, was already written (Mozart completed The Magic Flute after the Prague premiere of Tito).

Rosenkavalier, Der, an opera by R. Strauss with a libretto written for him by H. von Hofmannsthal, and published in 1911. It is the second and the most popular of the six works in which Hofmannsthal and Strauss collaborated, and was first performed at Dresden in January 1911. Its setting is Vienna in the second half of the 18th c.

The Marschallin, married straight from school to a great nobleman who spends his time hunting, has as her lover the 18-year-old Octavian, Count Rofrano, nicknamed Quinquin. While he is with her she is visited by a boorish country cousin, Baron Ochs von Lerchenau. Octavian disguises himself as a maid. Ochs has come to Vienna to marry a rich and pretty girl, Sophie, the daughter of a newly ennobled commoner, Edler von Faninal. Ochs asks the Marschallin's help in finding a suitable person to perform the indispensable ceremony of presenting to the betrothed girl a silver rose. She assures him that Count Rofrano will accept the duty. Ochs, who meanwhile takes a fancy to the supposed serving maid, is delighted.

Left alone, the Marschallin, who foresees the end of Octavian's love for her, sings a moving lament for passing youth and beauty. In the second act Octavian duly performs the ceremony of the rose, and he and Sophie von Faninal at once fall deeply in love. An altercation occurs with Ochs, whom Octavian wounds in an impromptu duel. Ochs, who is as lecherous as he is cowardly, receives a note of assignation from ‘Mariandel’, the name Octavian used when disguised as a maid. In the third act Ochs falls into a trap set for him by Octavian, who has arranged the rendezvous in an inn of dubious propriety. Octavian attends in disguise as Mariandel, the Baron is frightened out of his wits by opening trapdoors and grinning faces, and his immoral intentions revealed to the Marschallin and Faninal, whom Octavian has summoned. Octavian, casting off his disguise, receives Sophie, and the Marschallin sadly but gracefully accepts the loss of his love.

L'anima del filosofo, ossia Orfeo ed Euridice (The Soul of the Philosopher, or Orpheus and Euridice), Hob. 28/13, is an opera in Italian in four acts by Joseph Haydn, the last he ever wrote. The libretto, by Carlo Francesco Badini, is based on the myth of Orpheus and Euridice as told in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Composed in 1791, the opera was never performed during Haydn's lifetime.

After his patron Prince Nikolaus Esterházy had died in 1790, Haydn travelled to London where he received a commission to write several symphonies. The impresario John Gallini also offered him a contract to write an opera for the King's Theatre but due to a dispute between King George III and the Prince of Wales he was refused permission to stage it. As a result, the score was never completed and some music appears to be missing.

An opera by Francesco Cavalli. The opera, consisting of a prologue and three acts, was first performed at Venice in the January of 1654, at the Teatro SS Giovanni e Paolo.

Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The première (under the title Almaviva, or the Useless Precaution) took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome and though an infamous flop, The Barber of Seville has become a standard of comic opera repertory.

An opera in five acts by Composer Giuseppe Verdi.

Rodion Shchedrin composed Anna Karenina in 1972 and dedicated it to his wife, Maya Plisetskaya, who choreographed the first production of the ballet for the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre. Whatever visions of the producers, Anna Karenina is first of all, a work by Lev Tolstoy. The ballet deals solely with the main theme of Tolstoy's epic novel - the love question, Anna Karenina's existential dilemma.

She is emotionally torn between her husband, the civil servant Karenin, and her love, the charming Vronsky. With her husband she lives a proper and ethical life, a life where she enjoys the highest social regard, and a life - most importantly - with her dearest infant son. But it is also a life without any passion, a life where she is hardly more than a piece of furniture to her husband. Passion is the domain of Vronsky, but while her emotions may circumvent the social conventions - a rather daring proposition at the time - the question is whether her passionate love of Vronsky can circumvent her being a mother. Shchedrin's score is penetrating in a dramatic expression of feelings. For Tolstoy's characters do not only act out; they contemplate, question and reflect as much… The score which ideally taps into the dramatic atmosphere, renders brilliant musical characterizations and manifests emotional intensity has proved an excellent score and guide of inspiration for the creative team.

In 1975, the ballet was first seen in Lithuania. The Bolshoi's production was put on at the LNOBT stage by the same creative team including choreographers Maya Plisetskaya, Natalia Ryzhenko and Viktor Smirnov-Golovanov and designer Valery Levental. The cast was led by a Lithuanian conductor, Jonas Aleksa. One of the most innovative productions of the day, Anna Karenina fascinated the audiences with the dance of Maya Plisetskaya and Lithuanian ballet stars such like Nina Antonova and Svetlana Masaniova (Anna), Vytautas Kudzma and Raimundas Minderis (Vronsky), Voldemaras Chlebinskas and Jonas Katakinas (Karenin).

Anna Karenina returns to the LNOBT in a version created for the Royal Danish Ballet by a young choreographer Alexei Ratmansky and designer Mikael Melbye. The performers of the leading roles include Egle Spokaite, Miki Hamanaka, Nerijus Juska, Aurimas Paulauskas, Vytautas Kudzma and Evardas Smalakys.

Booking Info:

2009 Season - Times to be announced

Sylvia, originally Sylvia ou La Nymphe de Diane, is a full-length ballet in two or three acts, first choreographed by Louis Mérante to music by Léo Delibes in 1876. Sylvia is a typical classical ballet in many respects, yet it has many interesting features which make it unique. Sylvia is notable for its mythological Arcadian setting, creative choreographies, expansive sets and, above all, its remarkable score.

Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal adapted from his drama of 1903—the first of many such collaborations between composer and librettist.

An opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi with libretto by Temistocle Solera and based on the biblical story and the play by Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornu. It premiered on 9 March 1842 at La Scala in Milan.

The Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra is the oldest and most illustrious of Hungary's orchestras. It was founded in 1853 by Hungarian composer Ferenc Erkel, who led the orchestra until 1871. He was followed by Hans Richter (1871 - 1875), Sándor Erkel (1875 - 1900), István Kerner (1900 - 1918), and Ernst von Dohnányi (1919 - 1944). Since World War II, music directors have included Otto Klemperer, János Ferencsik, András Kórody, and Rico Saccani. Composers such as Liszt, Brahms, Goldmark, Mahler, Bartók, Kodály, and Dohnányi all wrote works for the orchestra. The members are chosen from among the best players at the Budapest Opera House. The orchestra performs in this opera house, where it offers one of the longest-running programs of subscription concerts in Europe (since 1853).

Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Victorien Sardou's drama, La Tosca.

The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, commonly referred to as Romeo and Juliet, is a play by William Shakespeare concerning the fate of two young lovers who would do anything to be together. It is, perhaps, the most famous of his plays and undoubtedly the most famous love story in Western history.

Parsifal is an opera in three acts written and composed by Richard Wagner between 1865 and 1882. It premiered at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth on 26 July 1882.

Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. It was composed between 1920 and 1924 and completed after Puccini’s death by Franco Alfano between 1925 and 1926. It premiered on 25 April 1926 at La Scala in Milan.

Don Giovanni (also known as The Rake Punished) is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, after Giovanni Bertati’s opera Don Giovanni Tenorio, o sia Il convitato di pietra. It was composed in 1787 and premiered on 29 October at The Estates Theatre in Prague, conducted by the composer himself.

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg) is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is one of the most popular operas in the repertory, and the longest still commonly performed today, usually taking around five hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater, Munich, on June 21, 1868. The conductor at the premiere was Hans von Bülow.

The story takes place in Nuremberg during the middle of the 16th century. At the time, Nuremberg was an Imperial Free City, and one of the centers of the Renaissance in Northern Europe. The story revolves around the real-life guild of Meistersinger (Master Singers), an association of amateur poets and musicians, mostly from the middle class and often master craftsmen in their main professions.

The Meistersingers developed a craftsmanlike approach to music-making, with an intricate system of rules for composing and performing songs. The work draws much of its charm from its faithful depiction of the Nuremberg of the era and the traditions of the Meistersinger guild. One of the main characters, the cobbler-poet Hans Sachs, is based on an actual historical figure: Hans Sachs (1494 — 1576), the most famous of the historical Meistersingers. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg occupies a unique place in Wagner's oeuvre.

It is the only comedy among his mature operas, and the only one centered on a historically well-defined time and place rather than a mythical or legendary setting. It is the only mature Wagner opera to be based on an entirely original story, devised by Wagner himself. It incorporates many of the operatic conventions that Wagner had railed against in his essays on the theory of opera: rhymed verse, arias, choruses, a ballet, and even a quintet (the celebrated Meistersinger Quintet).

Passing by the Parliament we cross the Danube on the Margaret-Bridge (Margaret-Island) and drive to the Royal Castle on the Buda Side, where we visit the Fisherman's Bastion (Promenade) and the Matthias Church - after the Citadel (Fotostop) we cross Elisabeth-Bridge and drive the City-Park towards Heroes' Square (Promenade). Passing by the Opera and St. Stephen's Basilica we reach the City Centre, where the tour ends.

Tour Info

Duration: 3hrs

Departure Point: Bp, 5 Bezirk, Erzséhet Platz(tér) 9-10(near Hotel Meridien)