Concert Review: Darkness, Light and Opera

The Budapest Festival Orchestra returns to New York.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Iván Fischer has led the Budapest Festival Orchestra since founding it in 1983.
Photo by Marco Borggreve.

The stately arches of Carnegie Hall are often witness to the most solemn of musical occasions. There is something ritualistic about the white plaster walls, the gold filigree and the elaborate columns evoking the sense of occasion. This weekend however, two concerts by the Budapest Festival Orchestra were among the most enjoyable and raucous at that storied venue. The music at each was that of Béla Bartók, Hungary's greatest composer of the 20th century.

Opera Review: Disenchantment

The Met revives its fairy tale twin bill of Tchaikovsky and Bartók.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Two sides of marriage. Left, Matthew Polenzani and Sonya Yoncheva in Iolanta. Right, Angela Denoke and Gerald
Finley as Mr. and Mrs. Bluebeard. Photos by Marty Sohl © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera. Collage by the author.

Part of the problem with short one-act operas is figuring out how to pair them off. On Monday night, the Met offered its second performance this season of a very unconventional double bill: Tchaikovsky's fairy tale Iolanta and Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle. The first is an idealized boy-meets-girl story, originally written to be paired with The Nutcracker. The second is Bartók's only opera: a chilling portrait of married life gone very wrong. The production, which premiered in Warsaw, is the brain-child of director Mariusz Trelinski, and this performance marks its first revival since 2015.

Opera Review: We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties...

The Hungarian National Opera offers a double bill at Lincoln Center.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Bass András Paleerde (in robe, left, and in suit, right) does double duty in the Hungarian
National Opera's double bill of Mario and the Magician and Duke Bluebeard's Castle.
Photo by Zsofia Palyi © 2018 Hungarian National Opera.

The most famous Hungarian opera of the twentieth century, and the only opera from that country to vault itself into the international repertory is Duke Bluebeard's Castle. Béla Bartók's lone operatic effort is a favorite around the world, although it is hard to cast and its one-hour length almost necessitates that it be performed as the heavy end of a double bill.

Festival Preview: Hungarian National Opera

Two weeks of opera and ballet, Budapest style.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Baritone Levente Molár in a scene from Erkel's seminal Hungarian opera Bánk Bán.
Photo by Attila Nagy. Image © 2018 the Hungarian National Opera.

The Hungarians are coming! For the first time since 2010, the David Koch Theater on the south side of Lincoln Center Plaza will resound with the sound of opera as the Hungarian National Opera comes to New York for a two week festival. The company is currently facing major renovations of its own house in Budapest. So they've decided to bring the exciting and colorful variety of operas from its own country to one of the big Lincoln Center stages. All performances will feature the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra under the baton of music director  Balázs Kocsár.

Opera Review: The Ghosts in the Darkness

Yannick and the Philadelphians visit Duke Bluebeard's Castle.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

What key is it in? Bluebeard and his wife.
Illustration by Gustave Dore.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin jumped to the forefront of conductors in the musical conscience of musically conscious New Yorkers last year when he became the newest music director in the history of the Metropolitan Opera. On Tuesday night, opera lovers got a taste of his abilities in that genre when he brought the Philadelphia Orchestra to Carnegie Hall for a performance of Béla Bartók's lone opera: Duke Bluebeard's Castle.