Donizetti - Maria Stuarda (Budapest, 2025)

Gaetano Donizetti - Maria Stuarda

Hungarian State Opera, 2025

Martin Rajna, Máté Szabó, Orsolya Sáfár, Gabriella Balga, Melinda Heiter, Juraj Hollý, Norbert Balázs, István Kovács

OperaVision - 16th May 2025

For the little that they reflect reality, there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to stage a historical opera in period setting and costume… etc. See my review of the 2025 Salzburg production of Maria Stuarda for the rest of this paragraph…

Since there are a couple of recent productions of this opera available to view on the various opera streaming platforms - and this is clearly a Donizetti opera that appears to be enjoying some renewed popularity at the moment - I thought I would take a look at how some other opera companies approach the work, not to see if one is better than the other (although obviously one is drawn to make comparisons and have preferences), but whether those approaches make any significant difference to how the work is viewed. None could be more extremely removed from the historical period than the Salzburg production, you would think, but the Hungarian State Opera has a go at rivalling it for eccentricity of interpretation, while still remaining true to the intent of the work.

The style of production here in Budapest is one I would describe as 'designer' opera, one that is somewhat abstract or unrelated to any specific period other than looking 'operatic'. The court of Elizabeth in the Hungarian State Opera production directed by Máté Szabó looks the way it might have if there an extravagant fashion designer with a taste for science-fiction had been sent back from the future to create costumes for the British royal court. They may have found employment also for an architect with leanings towards fascist architecture to redesign the royal palace to be a bit more practical and functional than a 16th century castle, making sure that there is an illuminated Exit sign (an ominous one for Mary Stuart in Act II) and a canteen with a drinks machine well-stocked with plastic bottles of water to keep the court hydrated. In other words, the idea is to present an image of wealth and inspire a degree of awe in the population and since an ancient medieval look might not seem quite as impressive now; a look to impress a modern audience, which you have to admit is the really who you want to impress. And impress this does.

In contrast to the recent production at the Salzburg Festival which used its design to reflect the inner reality and explore the state of mind of two women driven by political machinery and expectations of state, the intention of the Budapest design is perhaps more to reflect or present the image of power and authority that Elizabeth wishes to convey in the difficult decisions she has to make in relation to the prisoner who also believes she has a more 'legitimate' claim to the throne. It may also be an image of might and repression that the Hungarian audience would be familiar with from their own history, but what it does effectively is to remove any trappings of soft-power royal indulgence and in the process highlight how far removed from everyday reality - the reality of most ordinary people - they are.

And yet, their actions do have an impact on people's lives. Even if the modern day British royal family’s personal affairs have little impact on the people of the UK, they are still an serve a purpose as an important figurehead to remind common people of their station as subjects more than as citizens, and as such more easily bent to the will of their political masters. I can't say for sure what a production of Maria Stuarda says to a Hungarian audience, but I'm sure they also recognise in this production the personal extravagance of their leaders and the oppressive force that they have been subjected to in their history. As such, the production design strikes a good balance between abstract and reality, with the potential to have different shades of meaning for each viewer.

But of course most importantly, its intention is to look like a grand opera spectacle, because Donizetti's Maria Stuarda is indeed written as an operatic extravaganza of charged emotions and high drama and the 2025 Budapest production delivers that in spades. And not just in terms of spectacle, but also meeting the challenge of Donizetti's musical composition and the great roles he provides for the mezzo-soprano and soprano queens. Elisabetta is the first to show her colours and Gabriella Balga delivers in the great duet between Queen Elizabeth and Leicester (a fine Juraj Hollý) over the letter from Mary. It's perhaps not as subtly smouldering with jealous rage as the Kate Lindsey in the Salzburg production but that production had another angle and interpretation and there is no question that Balga brings the operatic fireworks required for the tone of the Budapest production.

Speaking of colour, having just watched two productions of Maria Stuarda back-to-back (I might do a third), I notice that despite the reputation of Donizetti and indeed this particular opera, there is no excessive coloratura in the bel canto, but rather every note sung by Elisabetta and Maria is expressive of the deep emotional charge of the situations. Seen in that context the performance of Orsolya Sáfár as Maria is just outstanding. Yes, wholly operatic, but with a passionate delivery, impressive power, with the range and ability to sustain high notes. She definitely set this Mary up as a formidable rival to Elizabeth. And, despite yourself, you look forward all the more here to the famous encounter where the claws come out. Even more so the two singers having already flexed the muscles of their impressive vocal weaponry. If these rulers were nuclear powers we would be in trouble.

Still, trouble enough for Mary Stuart. I don't care who you are, but I imagine you would still find it hard to get away with calling a queen a 'vil bastarda' to her face, so Maria Stuarda still packs an operatic punch that stands up today for shock value - not least in the manner in which it is delivered. With the Act I mic-drop delivered, Act II has to look elsewhere for its drama and spectacle and finds it in the stylish stylised sets, with Elizabeth in her silver satin armour - more for fashion design than as any indication of her nature. There are no such doubts about Mary's condition, dressed in white and suspended like a bird in a cage. There are lots of wonderful touches to the surrounding architecture in these final scenes, not least in Maria's walk to the scaffold, all in keeping with the operatic character of the royal drama.

It would be remiss not to give credit and praise to set designer Csaba Antal and costume designer Anni Füzér here, as their contribution to the whole look and feel of the extravagant production is evident and vital. The director Máté Szabó too has a clear idea of what he wants to get across in the opera and with Martin Rajna and the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra delivering a full dynamic account of the score, ensures that every scene is as charged as it can be. Primarily the success of this production and the key to the success of any production of Maria Stuarda however lies in the casting and performances of the two queens, and both here are absolutely outstanding, with good Italian diction, technical ability and sheer opera diva personality.

I'm not going to compare them with the performances in the Salzburg production. Much as some would like to see Maria Stuarda and opera as some kind of singing contest (each to their own), the real benefit of comparing productions is in seeing the individual personality that each singer brings to the role. The performances in the Budapest production are perhaps a little more traditionally operatic while the Salzburg production goes for a stylised interpretation of the roles, but the singing here is no less impressive across the board. There is plenty of fire and personality here to match the drama and visual extravagance, everything you want from this or indeed any of Donizetti's English monarchy operas.

External links: OperaVision, Hungarian State Opera

Eötvös - Valuska (Budapest, 2023)

Péter Eötvös - Valuska

Hungarian State Opera, 2023

Kálmán Szennai, Bence Varga, Zsolt Haja, Tünde Szalontay, Adrienn Miksch, Tünde Szabóki, Mária Farkasréti, András Hábetler, Krisztián Cser, István Horváth, Balázs Papp, Lőrinc Kósa, András Kiss, János Szerekován, Zoltán Bátki Fazekas, Attila Erdős

OperaVision - 17th December 2023

I haven't read the Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai, but know of his work through the films of Béla Tarr, the Hungarian director who has adapted three of his works as Damnation (1988), Sátántangó (1995) and Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), all of them remarkable. The latter is based on the Krasznahorkai's 1989 work The Melancholy of Resistance. The film is a powerful piece of allegorical cinema, almost abstract and surreal, but at the same time finding a way to touch on the everyday experience of people in society in decline or indeed living in fear under a totalitarian regime.

As the preeminent Hungarian composer of the present day and now 80 year old veteran of contemporary music, it falls to Peter Eötvös to bring an opera adaptation of The Melancholy of Resistance to the stage as the opera, Valuska. Although he has composed 12 operas over the years, this is surprisingly his first in Hungarian. Anyone familiar with the composer will know that it is not likely to be a rich musical opera in the traditional style, but what it should be and what it is, like Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies, is a fresh perspective on an enigmatic work that brings a new perspective and insight into what this extraordinary work is all about. And, in the process, lift it out of any specific time period and make it a work that can be endlessly revisited and reconsidered.

Certainly the themes in the film adaptation and the opera are similar, both evidently connecting with the original work's themes. There are differences of approach of course, and whereas Werckmeister Harmonies centred on the perspective of the learning impaired János Valuska, Eötvös - despite the opera's title - at least initially foregrounds the experience of his mother Piroshka Pflaum, sung here by the always wonderful Adrienn Miksch. Catching a train, she is appalled by the behaviour of those around her, feeling threatened by the uncouth behaviour particularly of men, but women also appear to behave in strange ways. She keeps hearing about and reading leaflet and posters advertising a travelling circus that is exhibiting the largest whale in the world and also promises a guest appearance from "the Prince", a mysterious enigmatic figure, who clearly demands respect even if his powers are unknown.

Piroska's friend Tünde (Tünde Szabóki) has been appointed mayor of the town. One of her first actions is to engage circus as part of her campaign to win over the people, but she feels that her "Well-Groomed Garden, Tidy House" movement is in trouble and needs the help of a learned gentleman. That person is her husband the Professor but he cannot be convinced. Tünde will have to rely on Piroska’s son János to convince him, even though the young man is regarded as a half-wit in the town. Even his mother considers her son a degenerate, presumably for spending so much time drinking in the local pub.

He may be considered an idiot but János (Zsolt Haja) has a particular talent for astronomy and a seemingly unique awareness of the position of man within the cosmos. He often demonstrates the movements of heavenly bodies into the phenomenon of a solar eclipse on demand for the drunken revelers in the pub as his party piece. By the same token, János is entranced at the circus by the majesty of the whale, this magnificent creature from nature that perhaps represents God or the centre of the universe, while the other townsfolk are all in thrall to the mystery of the Prince, a circus freak who has taken on a dangerous cult of personality, his presence is rumoured to cause unrest wherever he appears.

In contrast to Béla Tarr's stark monochrome realism, the staging of Valuska by director Bence Varga emphasises a more comic-absurd perspective of the work, with grotesque cartoonish figures with extra padding added. Tarr's film version of the story famously runs to just 39 long entrancing shots, while Eötvös's opera condenses this down to just 12 scenes. The librettist Kinga Keszthelyi introduces a narrator to preserve significant lines from Krasznahorkai's text, but Tarr manages to do just as effectively without. What is common to both works is the emphasis on a world running down, disappearing into absurdity, triviality and imbalance or disregard for what is important. Who needs a Judgement Day, the Professor observes when the world is in terminal decline and order will break down eventually of its own accord? That day may not be far away.

The decline into disorder might be less grandly cinematic in Eötvös's opera, there might have more of an edge of absurd dark humour but Valuska nonetheless captures other qualities of what is clearly a significant work. You can see it as a meditation of our place in an entropic universe or a depiction of people living in fear in Hungarian society during the Communist years, watching everything fall into ruin, being afraid to walk the streets, expecting danger on every corner, waiting for the regime of power to crumble and the next totalitarian leader to take over. Or you take it at face value as the disturbed perspective of a lunatic or an innocent who sees the world around him differently from everyone else, valuing nature and the cosmos above fear and superstition, who becomes a danger for not fitting in.

As the title of the film adaptation suggested, the idea of order in harmonic principles and the question of conforming to those principles or breaking them down and establishing a new order can be seen as central to the themes of the work, and that is presumably of interest to Péter Eötvös in his musical composition. The music here feels more like theatrical music rather than grand opera using a medium chamber ensemble. Although Eötvös provides textures of a wide range of sounds, he rarely makes use of all the instruments at once. The music mostly consists of short phrases of mainly woodwind and percussion, but there are long sinuous lines and string accompaniment for monologues. When combined with the dark absurdity of a corrupt world and a victimised innocent among it, the textural qualities of Valuska combine to have a quality not unlike Berg's Wozzeck. Valuska however has its own disturbing logic and view of the world, the music an essential element that contributes to the sense of underlying menace. The vocal writing for the opera is wonderful and the singing performances at the world premiere here are magnificent.

External links: OperaVision, Hungarian State Opera

Photos: © Nagy Attila

Wagner - Parsifal (Budapest, 2022)

Richard Wagner - Parsifal

Hungarian State Opera, 2022

Balázs Kocsár, András Almási-Tóth, István Kovácsházi, Andrea Szántó, András Palerdi, Michele Kalmandy, István Rácz, Károly Szemerédy, Eszter Zavaros, Anna Csenge Fürjes, Tivadar Kiss, Barna Bartos, Lilla Horti, Ildikó Megyimórecz, Lusine Sahakyan, Beatrix Fodor, Boglárka Brindás, Melinda Heiter, Bea Egyed, Laura Fehér, Virág Rovó, Judit Németh, József Mukk, András Káldi Kiss, Benjámin Taba, Milos Katonka

OperaVision - 15th April 2022

Parsifal is not like any other opera, and not just because Wagner called it a Bühnenweihfestspiel "A Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage" for Good Friday. It operates on a deep level beyond the surface narrative, exploring issues of faith and brotherhood, the common condition of being human in infinite space and time as a physical being and a spiritual one, the condition of living through pain, the desire to seek release and redemption. So all-encompassing is its view of humanity that even that is a poor and inadequate description of a work that I have barely scratched the surface of in many reviews, so evidently it's going to be even more difficult for a director bringing it to the stage and seeking to illuminate a part of the work or even more ambitiously, the whole.

What should be more evident if you can't follow the narrative or probe its underlying meaning, is that the music expresses what Parsifal is about and touches the listener much more directly than any idea a stage director might have. It's always interesting to see what a director chooses, how ambitious he is, how successful he is, and I personally never fail to find something new in this music drama each time someone else works with it. I'm not sure how successful or ambitious the 2022 Good Friday production directed by András Almási-Tóth for Budapest will be seen to be, but it has some ideas that get across the intent of the work, which regardless impresses by the sheer majesty and unparalleled brilliance and beauty of the work itself.

In fact the first idea that this production seems to employ is one similar to the recent Vienna State Opera production. A little confusingly it tells us during the opening scene that the events have already taken place, that the fellowship of the Knights of the Holy Grail has fallen, Amfortas no longer able to sustain them through the painful ritual of revealing the Grail. Using a double actor for the young Parsifal, the older man looks back on the events that took place when he first arrived at Montsalvat with some measure of regret at his foolishness and naivety.

It's an idea that works well enough and a little better than the Vienna production since it doesn't try to extend this division throughout the whole work. It also succeeds in choosing to have the events of the opera take place in a fairly neutral setting. Act I looks like it is set in a car showroom with large windows, not some mythical land or castle of Montsalvat. The knights wear modern dress but retain some of the ceremonial trappings of the knights, some wearing puffer jackets others armoured breastplates.

As far as the key scenes of Act I go within this setting, the director retains some of the formality of the rituals and traditions, the communion the brotherhood of the Knights with the Grail. ​The Verwandlungsmusik scene takes on a Stanley Kubrick 2001: A Space Odyssey-like aspect, going down a wormhole of kaleidoscopic lights. Act I ends with the young Parsifal wandering about the stage lost, moved but unsure what he has witnessed. His eyes have been opened but there is a long journey ahead to understand and fulfil his own role in bringing a message of redemption for mankind.

In Act II the Flowermaidens are dressed in white robes and garlands in a scene of pagan worshipping around trees in the courtyard of Klingsor's castle. Some semi-naked nymphs are draped over branches like forbidden fruit. Adam and Eve figures, looking lost, briefly appear in the moments up to Parsifal's kiss of revelation with Kundry, when he is struck with a deeper understanding of love and compassion. It's at this moment that the young silent actor playing Parsifal disappears and István Kovácsházi's mature singing Parsifal takes his place in the scenic drama.

Act III returns to the Montsalvat that we saw initially, showing the change that has happened in the years of Parsifal's wandering. It's a bare room with a bed on one side and swan in a glass case on the other. Kundry raises the screen to reveal the returned enlightened Parsifal as a knight in black armour holding the spear. The idea of a return to innocence, kindness and redemption is shown in a doubled scene where a second Kundry washes the feet of a child, a motherly gesture that is key to Parsifal's understanding of love and compassion, as well suggesting the Christian ritual washing away of sin through baptism and anointment; an attainment of purity and rebirth. The barren world is also reborn, surrounding the room with projections of green forest that dissolve into bold key leitmotif words and phrases from the opera; 'die Wunde', 'der reine Tor', 'der Speer', 'der Graal'.

Whether any of this adds anything new to the work is debatable, but certain elements come to the fore and, such is the nature of this work, there are a variety of personal interpretations that will depend on the receptiveness of each individual viewer and listener. Kundry, as is often the case, can be the key to the work and stood out for me here. She - moreso than Amfortas - represents humanity's progress, her endurance of suffering, shame and failure throughout the ages, longing for peace and sleep, for release, to be relieved of the weight of knowledge. She is the past that humanity wants to reject or deny, and is scorned by the Knights who aspire to more noble aims. Aspects of her pain and foolishness and attainment of purity are replicated and given other dimensions by the Knights of the Grail, the suffering of Amfortas, the conflict and innocence of Parsifal.

Similarly, no matter how you continually attempt to reduce the work down to narrative, themes and descriptive words, it always fails to adequately convey what Parsifal is about. It's a work that gains in weight and meaning with each passing year, with each new performance and production, accumulating history, connecting humanity with the modern world and what is currently going on. If you want to see the current conflict in Ukraine in it, it's there, so all-encompassing is the work, and it doesn't even need a director to make that explicit. It's there inside the individual to bring their understanding and experience of the world to it. Wagner's Parsifal is a supreme work of art in that respect, living and open to continual re-evaluation, never to be pinned down to one thing or another.

It is nonetheless performance art and interpretation is relevant. Here conducted by Balázs Kocsár at the recently renovated and reopened Ybl Palace in Budapest it came across as powerfully as it should. The strongest performances here I felt were from Michele Kalmandy as Amfortas and Andrea Szántó as Kundry. There was nothing special about the interpretation, but both sung it well. The same could also be said of András Palerdi as Gurnemanz and István Kovácsházi as Parsifal, although both were just a little under-powered, lacking the emotional depth for the expression of compassion. István Rácz was a fine Titurel.

Erkel - Bánk bán (Budapest 2017)

Ferenc Erkel - Bánk bán

Hungarian State Opera, Budapest - 2017

Balázs Kocsár, Attila Vidnyánszky, Marcell Bakonyi, Ildikó Komlósi, Levente Molnár, Zita Szemere, Péter Balczó, Kolos Kováts, Zsolt Haja, Lajos Geiger, Gergely Irlanda

OperaVision - 2018

There's certainly a lot of early Verdi in Bánk bán situations of romantic intrigue and betrayal set in a time of political upheaval, those operas of course reflecting the classic literary sources of the period that they are drawn from. In most cases the romantic melodrama takes precedence and overshadows what you might think are the rather more weighty matters of state and history, but as something of a national opera in Hungary, you sense that there's more justification and relevance to the personal situations that lead to rebellion against the state in Bánk bán.

If there's more historical and national relevance in Ferenc Erkel's account of this historical episode, well, we can presume that he didn't face the same pressures of censorship that Verdi was subjected to, and if the musical writing is a little more rich and varied in its musical expression than early Verdi, it should be noted that in 1861 when Bánk bán was composed, Verdi was at his peak writing Otello. Ferenc's opera still holds closely to the older formal conventions, with arias and interspersed with rousing drinking songs and rousing choruses expressing nationalistic sentiments.

As for romantic situations, well you wouldn't say that it's overblown, since that's pretty much a given, but there is a darker and more serious that develops in the court of King Endre II of Hungary around the year 1212. While Bánk is out fighting the country's wars, his wife Melinda is having to fight off the attentions of Ottó, the brother of Queen Gertrud. For his own evil ends, the courtier Biberach tells Melinda that Ottó's infatuation is only a ploy to test the fidelity of the Hungarian women. With the aid of a few potions however, he permits Otto to have his wicked way with her.

Verdi might have been writing Otello at the time, but Bánk bán's reaction when his informed of what he believes is his wife's betrayal is no less charged with thoughts of anger and revenge than the Moor, nor is Melinda's despair at what has occurred any deeper than Desdemona. But there is very much a political and national undercurrent to this situation that gives a deeper dimension to the drama. Even though it was a ploy, the test of Melinda's fidelity stands as a test of the nature of the fidelity and integrity of the Hungarian people, and it has been bitterly betrayed by, well, not to put to fine a point on it, by corrupt foreigners.

Gertrud and her brother Otto are Meranians (Germans), who have married into the Royal family, and they have been abusing their power, granting favours to friends and family while the ordinary people of Hungary have been suffering and starving. Bánk bán - a bán was a provincial governor answerable to the king - has been out fighting for his land while his family at home has been humiliated, and that cuts deeper than mere jealousy or betrayal. It's not a romantic rival that Bánk sets himself against, but a rival that threatens the rule of his country. As Bánk puts it, his only wish is that his "sacred homeland and good name remain unstained", but both are suffering while he hesitates over what action to take. "A pall hangs over my country and my honour is gone".

His big aria where he steels his resolve ends with the emotional declaration "It's beautiful to live and die for you, my sacred home, Hungary!" It doesn't get any more direct than that in terms of recognising where his true priorities lie, or rather the wonder and greatness of Bánk bán is that does actually does get even more direct than that. Having been driven to such lengths - the music and dramatic progress fully justifying his rage - Bánk confronts the queen in one of the most charged episodes I've experienced in any opera. Just for the gravity of the situation, for the impertinence of Bánk ban threatening to usurp the throne for the sake of the suffering people of his land, for the defiant stance of Gertrud before he actually kills her, aware of the consequences, it's a stunning scene.

The opera doesn't leave it there of course, but it also has the terrible fate of Melinda to consider, it has the king's rage to contend with, there are stirrings of rebellion that have been given voice by Bánk's actions, the people fed up with the abuses of the Meranians, and all of these scenes are given great musical and dramatic drive. They are performed as such also by the cast with the principal cast all demonstrating the kind of commitment and passion that is usually reserved for only the most sacred devotions, and well, what is a national opera but a kind of sacred art, and who else but the composer of Hungary's national anthem to bring it to those heights?

Attila Vidnyánszky's production of Bánk bán for the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest is excellent, if a little rough around the edges. The set designs by Oleksandr Bilozub strike a good balance between semi-period recreation of the costumes and more modern presentation in terms of using platforms and screens. A platform extends the stage out around the orchestra to give additional space for movement, but also to relate the drama more closely with the music and bring it all closer to the audience. Some of the blocking and choreography is a little random and awkward in places, as if performers have been left to fend for themselves, particularly with the entrances and exits. It's wonderfully atmospheric however, capturing all the passion, charge and drama that conductor Balázs Kocsár brings out of the orchestra.

Links: Hungarian State Opera, OperaVision