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Budapest Spring FestivalThe 27th annual Budapest Spring Festival has opened with more than 200 events in the city. |  |
| First held in 1981, the Budapest Spring Festival
is the largest annual cultural event in Hungary. It boasts orchestral
and chamber concerts, jazz, contemporary dance, film screenings and
much more in 200 events at a multitude of venues throughout the city.
The festival showcases some of the finest Hungarian performers,
composers and artists as well as international talent.
Visitors in 2007 include Christoph von Dohnányi and the NDR Sinfonieorchester, as well as Dohnányi's other orchestra, the Philharmonia, which appears under its previous music director, Riccardo Muti. Trevor Pinnock and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen are joined by Portuguese pianist Maria Joăo Pires, while Concerto Köln, the Akademie für Alte Musik and the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra form a trio of German chamber orchestras visiting. The Russian National Orchestra comes with founder-conductor Mikhail Pletnev, Portugal's Gulbenkian Orchestra comes with conductor Lawrence Foster, while from South Amercia, the Săo Paulo State Symphony Orchestra comes with music by Ginastera and Guarnieri, as well as Bartók. Home-grown orchestras include the Budapest Festival Orchestra, with a Richard Strauss programme under founder conductor Iván Fischer, as well as Stephen Kovacevich playing Beethoven's Emperor concerto, and both the National Philharmonic, under Zoltan Kocsis and the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, performing Háry János under Adam Fischer contributing to the Kodály focus that also includes an international conference on the composer. The equally packed stage programme includes a Mozart focus (hardy souls can see Le nozze di Figaro, Cosě fan tutte and Don Giovanni on the same day - 25 March!), Puccini's Turandot and the European premičre of the Broadway hit Altar Boyz about a small-town pious pop act. Dance includes more parody in Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo and the world premičre of a ballet based on Gone with the Wind. Jazz is represented by saxophonist Branford Marsalis and the Nigel Kennedy Quintet and Hungarian film composer Miklós Rósza is featured in an evening. Theatre includes Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and an adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, while Heiner Goebbels's wonderful mixture of stage, text and music, Eraritjaritjaka, comes to the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne. Please visit the Budapest Festival Centre's website for the full programme, including exhibitions. More about the calendar of events |
