Bella – Almási: PassionEstreno absoluto

Following his one-act opera Spring Awakening, in collaboration with the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, and the orchestration of L’incoronazione di Poppea premiered at the Eiffel Art Studios, the Hungarian State Opera now presents a work by composer Máté Bella at the Opera House for the first time. The Erkel Ferenc Prize and Béla Bartók – Ditta Pásztory Prize recipient composer has already left his mark in a wide range of musical styles, from chamber music and orchestral works to incidental music and pop music; now, turning once again toward the classical music stage, he has created an operaoratorio that explores the Passion story of Christ. One of the work’s most distinctive dramaturgical features of the composition, written for the scholarship competition of the Hungarian Academy of Arts, is its reverse narrative structure: the story unfolds backward, from the death of Jesus to the Last Supper. This treatment of time opens up a new perspective and places the dramatic climax not in the crucifixion itself, but in the moment when Jesus chooses to set out on his path on Maundy Thursday. The world premiere of the work is staged by András Almási-Tóth, the OPERA’s artistic director and the librettist of the piece. The libretto shifts the focus away from the physical brutality of the Passion narrative and explores the human and spiritual process instead through which Jesus consciously accepts and fulfils his destiny. The aim of the authors is to reinterpret the opera-oratorio genre and bring it closer to today’s Y and Z generations, without sacrificing musical or conceptual depth. This work is not merely a performance, but a dialogue about faith, choice, and responsibility, and about what this two-thousand-year-old story might mean for a contemporary European audience today.