Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Éva Szendrényi

Andrea Brassói-Jőrös shines in the title role of János Szikora's new staging of Dvořák's fairy tale opera. 

The Hungarian State Opera's first New York tour featured an opera of forbidden love set in the Biblical Times by Karl Goldmark, and was a rare treat for the New York audience.

In a sensational Hungarian double bill of taut psychological drama at Müpa, Péter Eötvös' Senza sangue proves a thrilling partner to Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle.

The score of Goldmark's opera is filled with lovely orchestral surprises, in addition to stunning arias, but is often filled with an abundance of slow tempos.

Hungarian critic Sandor Hevesy once declared that Bluebeard’s Castle was “far too dark”. Yet, Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Miraculous Mandarin are probably the summation of his orchestral journey. And what better experience then making it to Budapest, to hear it in its birthplace?

Excitingly conducted and largely well-sung, this sumptuous but unfussy Turandot should please both traditionalist and adventurous operagoers.  

Hungary is a landlocked country. In fact, Budapest is an awfully long way from the sea in all directions. So it’s not the first place you’d expect to come for a production of Wagner’sFlying Dutchman that is gloriously redolent of the sea, both in staging and in the orchestral performance. But that’s what we got last night at the Hungarian State Opera.