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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.

Powerful and evocative imagery, both literal and implied, lingered on beyond the drop of the curtain.

The music, a combination of Italian-sounding melodies, German instrumentation and Hugarian dotted rhythms, was remarkably captivating.

The acting was patchy and the singing ranged from serviceable to laudable in this dazzling new production at the Budapest Spring Festival.

A new production of Humperdinck's charming opera fails to enchant at the Erkel Theatre. 

A double bill that focuses on the purity of classical ballet form, in a fine combined 70th Anniversary celebration, excellently performed by Hungarian National Ballet.  

Show-stealing bass singing from Krisztián Cser and an immensely powerful Act 2 make a persuasive case for Verdi's neglected predecessor to Rigoletto.

Oliver von Dohnányi leads a great orchestral performance to drive Meyerbeer's grand historical epic, lit up by sparkling coloratura from Klára Kolonits.

Now an ever-developing city, Budapest has become much more than faded grandeur, actually, and the Hungarian National Ballet’s recent moves reflect just that

With Gergely Kesselyák on double duty as conductor and director, this revival proves musically outstanding but theatrically less than satisfying.

The big heart and generous melodies of Ferenc Erkel's fine opera shine through in difficult circumstances in Atilla Vidnyánszky semi-abstract new staging at the Erkel Theatre.

The Hungarian National Ballet brilliantly closes the season with the world premiere of Marianna Venekei’s version of Tennessee Williams’ classic A Streetcar Named Desire on music by László Dés.

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.

The third installment of Géza M. Tóth's staging of the Ring, this Siegfried is visually striking, but it's only a strong cast, and above all Egils Silins' Wanderer, that makes it worth attending.

With a convoluted production and uneven cast, Tamás Pál in the pit and Klára Kolonits as Erzsébet Szilágyi prove to be the highlights of the performance of this Erkel classic.

This double cast, nine-day revival of Vadim Milkov's staging of Pique Dame offers a relatively straight reading of Tchaikovsky's opera about the obsessive Pushkin-based character Herman. Embracing the opera's choral and dance passages, spectacle and pageantry are paramount; the drama's surreal and more nuanced dimensions could have been better profiled.

The Hungarian State Opera offered up a belated Hungarian première by one of its native sons, Péter Eötvös – his 2007 opera Love and Other Demons.

A warhorse on its own, Kálmán Nádasdy's 79-year-old production works surprisingly well, providing a nice evening's entertainment with a dedicated cast.

Klára Kolonits's marvellous Lucia is the only thing brightening the bleak performance of the Hungarian State Opera's new Lucia di Lammermoor.

Quality singing impresses in Puccini's opera at the Hungarian State Opera, despite a dusty staging.

Opening the weekend that marked the 60th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution, The Mine (A Bánya), the first of Rautavaara's nine operas, dramatizes events from those turbulent times. 

Polish opera director Michał Znaniecki created a new version of Zoltán Kodály’s 1927 The Spinning Room, a short one-act which is basically a collection of 21 Hungarian folksongs that Kodály had selected from the Székely region.

Although with a promising concept, the Hungarian State Opera’s new production ultimately proved underdirected.

Underwhelming performances, all too tempestuous conducting and an aesthetically pleasing but puzzling production fail to thrill.

Singers delight in a rare concert performance of Bellini's opera.

Miklós Szinetár's production for Hungarian State Opera is easy on the eye, but perhaps a little too beautiful for its subject matter.

The big man in the fat suit rules the show, briging vigour and joie de vivre to Hungarian State Opera's Falstaff.

Hungarian State Opera mount a successful première of Thomas Adès's take on Shakespeare, with the show stolen by Laure Meloy's Ariel.

Inadequate production and mixed performances characterize the Hungarian State Opera's new Trovatore.

Solid singing proves to be the main attraction of an ineffective new staging of Die Walküre at the Hungarian State Opera.

Known for her powerful interpretations of the blockbuster Italian mezzo roles, the great Hungarian diva Ildikó Komlósi dominates the new production of Aida in Budapest.

Hungarian composer Dohnányi's fourth and last opera is a comic delight, especially in the hands of the team at the Budapest Opera. 

Young bohemians give Puccini’s opera the refreshing radiance of youth. 

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

The Hungarian Nation Ballet presents a stunning programme in which Kyliàn's Black and White masterpieces are paired with Lander's polished Études. 

In a reconstruction of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s production for the world première of Reimann’s soul-pummelling Lear, the staging stands the test of time, but the cast and orchestra leave the biggest impression.

Erwin Schrott seduces the Budapest audience with smiles, but Zerlina steals the show in Budapest. 

Rarely performed, Boito’s Mefistofele is an audacious, spectacular opera, needing an audacious, spectacular staging to do it justice. That’s exactly what it gets in Balázs Kovalik’s production for Hungarian State Opera.

Any director taking on Weber’s Der Freischütz faces big challenges. Sándor Zsóter’s production for the Hungarian State Opera takes risks, with very mixed results.

The devil may not get all the best tunes in Gounod’s Faust, but Gábor Bretz certainly stole the show in this new production at Hungarian State Opera. 

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.