# Hungarian State Opera House



## operabuffer (Jul 22, 2010)

I'm just wondering whether anybody here knows anything about the Hungarian State Opera House. I've got tickets to see Tosca there later this year and I was really looking forward to it until I read some guide books. The cast is as follows:

Conductor: Moshe Atzmon
Tosca: Gyöngyi Lukács
Cavaradossi: János Berkes
Scarpia: Béla Perencz
Angelotti: Ferenc Valter
Un Sagrestano: Gábor Gárday
Spoletta: László Haramza
Sciarrone: Tamás Clementis

I'm afraid the guidebooks don't seem to rate the Hungarian State Opera very highly. One said that it was average, mediocre, and unimaginative (the last not necessarily a bad thing!). Another said that neither the singing nor the acting was very good. The worst of all said that this was an opportunity to go to the opera as it used to be: not for the music but for a night out. It claims that this is a place to look at the architecture, look at the people, and be seen; to have a glass of wine during the first interval, something stronger during the second, and leave before the third act.

Tosca is my favourite opera and I was really looking forward to seeing it in Budapest. Now I'm worried that it will be a terrible disappointment (and that I'll be embarrassed to have taken a friend to a disappointing performance).


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## classidaho (May 5, 2009)

I'd say, "Enjoy the architecture, see the people, be seen and enjoy the music!"

It can't be that bad and critics live in their own LITTLE world.

I once watched La Traviata in an old theater in Sandpoint Idaho, put on by the San Francisco 'somthing or another' Opera. I enjoyed the architecture, the people, was not seen and thoroughly enjoyed the music. 

The small town crowd was electric!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I remember talking to a guy who saw Smetana's _The Bartered Bride_ there in the 1970's & he said it was good. It may not exactly be La Scala, but it's probably still one of the best opera houses in that part of the world...


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## Jaime77 (Jun 29, 2009)

Tosca !! Love it


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## operabuffer (Jul 22, 2010)

Thanks. I really will try to enjoy it, and I just hope my companion will manage to enjoy it too. I found a few videos online of the main singers and I suppose they seemed alright, if not quite what I'm used to. I've seen Tosca three times at Covent Garden in the last few years although I can only find one programme:

Conductor: Paul Wynne Griffiths
Tosca: Micaela Carosi
Cavaradossi: Jonas Kaufmann
Scarpia: Paolo Gavanelli
Angelotti: Kostas Smoriginas
Un Sagrestano: Enrico Fissore
Spoletta: Robin Leggate
Sciarrone: Darren Jeffrey
Gaoler: John Morrissey

I've also heard Angela Gheorghiu as Tosca and Bryn Terfel as Scarpia.

I suppose the truth is we are spoiled in London. Last week at the Opera House we had Simon Boccanegra with Plácido Domingo, Marina Poplavskaya, Paata Burchuladze, Joseph Calleja, and Jonathan Summers, under the baton of Antonio Pappano, and it doesn't really get any better than that. But I suppose that is also reflected in the price of the tickets: top price £210, compared with a top price of around £30 for Budapest, and my Budapest tickets are just over £10 each, so I guess I should never have hoped for Covent Garden quality.


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## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

For that price, I'd just go and not think twice. Even if the singing isn't world class caliber ... hey, it's still Tosca, right?


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

rgz said:


> For that price, I'd just go and not think twice. Even if the singing isn't world class caliber ... hey, it's still Tosca, right?


My feelings exactly. Budapest is a lovely city & I'm sure you'll have a great time.


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## larifari (Sep 5, 2011)

operabuffer said:


> I'm just wondering whether anybody here knows anything about the Hungarian State Opera House. I've got tickets to see Tosca there later this year and I was really looking forward to it until I read some guide books. The cast is as follows:
> 
> Conductor: Moshe Atzmon
> Tosca: Gyöngyi Lukács
> ...


Throw away your so-called 'guidebooks', which were, obviously written by conceited, ignorant, condescending and uppity snobs.

I could use the same words about the 'advise' you got from others on this tread, but I don't want to get in trouble with the moderators.

My advise to you: Take advise only from those "been there and done it"!


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

Lukáts and Perencz are very good. Lukáts sings worldwide and Perencz is our lead Wagner bass-baritone. Don't really know the tenor. 

The house is beautiful, the style resembles the Vienna State Opera, and I think our Tosca is very traditional, so no surprises.


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## larifari (Sep 5, 2011)

For those who were obviously condescending about Hungarian Opera, here is an example and I like to invite opinions as to why this does not deserve your approval:






I am still looking for examples of the clear and beautiful and sweet tenor of Janos Berkes who offended many of the correspondents, here for having the nerve to play Cavaradossi in Tosca in Budapest.

Until, I find one, here is an aria not often enough performed by world renown tenors, performed, here by Janos Berkes, and tell me that this is not a world class tenor, if such as Andrea Bocelli is. Admittedly, it is only operetta, and it is a duet, but tell me what is your problem with Janos Berkes singing Cavaradossi.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

László Polgár is a fine Rocco in this DVD of Fidelio, I didn't know him before, but I definitely noticed him when I watched it.










Janoz Berkes is as good as Andrea Bocelli.


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## larifari (Sep 5, 2011)

mamascarlatti said:


> László Polgár is a fine Rocco in this DVD of Fidelio, I didn't know him before, but I definitely noticed him when I watched it.












Janos Berkes is every bit as good a tenor as any of the internationally high-lighted, and undeservedly acclaimed tenors of today.

Let's be honest and face it: Unless you can put an undisputed numerical value on the "QUALITY" of your favorite singer, your opinon is no more worthy than mine.


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## larifari (Sep 5, 2011)

It pi$$es me off when jerks who would be unable to utter a single word other than their mother tongue, have the nerve to criticize cultures and languages they know bugger all about, as inferior, as implied in posts, above. 

I know and love opera, because when I was a teenager and younger I learned the words of opera in my native language, courtesy of the HUNGARIAN STATE OPERA HOUSE, who had the wisdom of translating the word so callously and cavalierly and ignorantly dismissed by people who have not ever been anywhere East of the border.


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