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Klára Kolonits's radiant Elsa proves the main attraction in the Hungarian State Opera's visually appealing but conceptually lacking new Lohengrin.

Hungarian National Ballet's La Bayadère revitalizes tradition with a new reconstruction of its forgotten final act. 

Hungarian State Opera's cut-down, dramatically inert Gioconda fails to ignite the stage in Budapest, despite a solid musical foundation. 

Martin Rajna's energetic conducting and Gabriella Balga's glorious Elisabetta are the bright spots in this flashy but empty house premiere of Donizetti's classic.

Hungarian National Ballet strike a delightful balance between lighthearted comedy and technical assurance in Ronald Hynd's The Merry Widow.

Attila Mókus's dramatic baritone was scornful at one moment, tender, distressed, vengeful, or broken in mourning at others, vocal signposts in Rigoletto’s descent into the hell of his own making.

András Almási-Toth production of the original version of Mussorgsky's historical epic underwhelms in Budapest. 

Hungarian State Opera revives their mostly period production of Strauss' Arabella with star turns by sopranos Polina Pasztircsák and Laura Topolánszky.

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

Three iconic Bartók dance scores are newly-interpreted at the Hungarian National Ballet. 

Hungarian National Ballet's Spartacus is not short of drama. Combined with Khachaturian's rousing score and some breathtaking dancing, it's a winner.

Hungarian State Opera presents Idomeneo for the first time in almost 50 years in a musically superb, but controversial pandemic-informed dystopian setting.

Three complete ballets and a sprinkling of divertissements made for a highly enjoyable gala.

Cast and orchestra excel in a sensitive linking of Gluck’s music and drama in Róbert Alföldi's simple, direct production at the Hungarian State Opera.

Balázs Kovalik’s interpretation of Elektra is revived in Budapest, impressing until the B-movie cliché finale. 

This expanded Swan Lake celebrated the return of an exceptional ballerina after a year's lay-off as well as displaying the depth of talent within the company.

Calixto Bieito takes on Prokofiev's Tolstoy epic – and wins in the opera's Hungarian premiere. 

In András Almási-Toth's engaging new production, magnificent orchestral and choral performances let Wagner's music do the talking.

Balázs Kovalik’s opulent staging of Boito's Faustian opera threatens to overshadow the singers, but it makes for an exciting spectacle.

MacMillan's ballet returns to the Hungarian National Ballet in time for the Opera House's grand reopening.

Szilveszter Ókovács' new production matches the opulent venue in all its eye-candy, with dazzling costumes, dark sets large crowds, and rapid scenic changes made possible by a newly installed mechanical stage. 

A memorable Manon in Budapest 

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.