Erkel's Hunyadi László a visual feast, but lacks Magyar spirit in Budapest's grand reopening

Given that Ferenc Erkel’s Hunyadi László is a Hungarian national treasure, directors are well advised to tread lightly. But it wasn’t the fear of the audience that prompted Szilveszter Ókovács to go with tradition instead of experimentation in a new Hungarian State Opera production meant to showcase the opera house’s formal reopening after a major makeover. Ókovács, who is also the house’s general director, told me that a historical staging is the best way “to show off the creativity of our workshops and our new technical devices’’ after almost five years of renovations.

Going with the tried and true was probably wise for an additional reason. If not quite as dear to the hearts of Hungarian operagoers as Hunyadi László, the opera house and its reopening, come a close second. It is thus fitting that the production matches the opulent venue in all its eye-candy, with dazzling costumes, dark sets foreshadowing the tragedy to befall one of the nation’s historic heroes, crowds of fighters approximating a true army in size and rapid scenic changes made possible by a newly installed mechanical stage. There is even a horse – and yes, he was toilet trained!

But Ókovács' production could have used a bit more of the fire that heats the Magyar soul. Alive and well even today in the government’s railing against the “foreign” influence of the European Union, Hungary’s defiance gene has evolved from centuries of resistance against first Turkish, then Austrian and finally Soviet rule. While architect Miklos Ybl had to build the Hungarian opera house smaller than its Viennese counterpart as demanded by Emperor Franz Josef I, even the Habsburg ruler acknowledged on touring it after completion in 1884 that it was the more stunning of the two. And Hunyadi László with its weak and treacherous king – a 15th-century Habsburg scion – and the Hungarian nobleman he sends to his doom was grist to the mill of the nationalist crowds who sang excerpts from it during the 1848 anti-Austrian revolution.

For those in the audience not imbued with Magyar fervour, the production as seen on 13th March could have done with a bit more of the spirit exhibited by those crowds. The focus on splendour and grandness came at the expense of nimbleness both in showing and telling. Conductor Balázs Kocsár had all the variety of Erkel’s music in the manner of French grand opéra with its touches of Hungarian folk, Rossini and Beethoven, as well as predating Wagner. But the action is slow. The vocal music is in set pieces in most cases, which means there is frequently little transition between the delivery of one of the main characters before he or she clears the stage for the next one. Video projections foreshadowing the tragedy ahead, even as the singing hints at a happy end, would have served as a bridge. Ditto for bits of visualised interior drama that, in just one example, could have placed Erzsébet Szilágyi, the hero’s mother, in a corner of the stage with her head in her arms in silent desperation at what is to come in the wedding scene between her son and his betrothed that turns from joyous to tragic.

Apropos Erzsébet Szilágyi, this opera would have been named after her if judged on the merits of Klára Kolonits in the role of the noblewoman who tries in vain to save her son from the chopping block.  The production’s true star, Kolonits' character unfortunately only arrives in Act 2, but then with the opera’s loveliest aria. “Mint a Tenger” is a showcase of the considerable vocal qualities she exhibited throughout the evening, from her mastery of coloratura to effortless changes in pitch and breath control that carried her through the longest passages with full volume. Her dramatic qualities were also superb. 

Most of the other principals were pleasing as well. Szabolcs Brickner was convincing as Hunyadi László, the Magyar patriot betrayed and beheaded through intrigue by evil foreigners or their henchmen. One of them, Ulrik Cillei dies in Act 1, and that’s a shame because his robust portrayal by bass András Palerdi was one of the evening’s highlights. Fortuitously Erkel provides the audience with another villain to hate: Count Miklós Gara (sung by Gábor Bretz), who agrees to the marriage of his daughter to Hunyadi only to give her hand to the king instead. Bretz was as well cast – and evil – as Palerdi. Also good were Erika Miklósa as Maria Gara and Attila Erdös as the Magyar officer Rozgonyi. The weakest link in an otherwise fine cast was Dániel Pataky as King László V. His leggero tenor suited the weak character he portrayed, but he had to push occasionally for his higher notes.

Above all, though, this was an evening of visual splendour on an occasion of great national significance. And while most guests might not have seen it as they hurried up the grand staircase, I almost thought that the marble busts of both Erkel and Ybl were smiling.