Budapest Festival Orchestra

Béla Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin captures the raw, gritty pulse of the modern metropolis. The action unfolds in a seedy den where a young woman lures passersby inside. But instead of finding the pleasure they came for, they are quickly overpowered and robbed by her accomplices — until a mysterious stranger, the Mandarin, falls into the trap . . . The world premiere in 1926 caused such an uproar in Catholic Cologne that the mayor — none other than the future German chancellor Konrad Adenauer — banned the work outright. Bartók then prepared a concert version, though he was never happy with it. “This work is a pantomime with music; both elements should be performed together,” he wrote in the score. Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra take him at his word: together with the Eva Duda Dance Company, they bring the Mandarin vividly to life onstage. The evening opens with Schubert’s darkly compelling Symphony in B minor, the Unfinished. After which Elisabeth Leonskaja will perform Mozart. She celebrated her 80th birthday last November, yet her interpretations today are more sophisticated and refined than ever.

Tickets: CHF 240 | 200 | 150 | 100 | 60 | 30