Classical music in Budapest, Hungary
Budapest, the capital of Hungary, is a beautiful city or rather two cities, with Buda stretching across the hills on one side of the Danube and Pest on the plain on the other side. It is also a fantastic centre for classical music and opera at accessible prices.
There are currently three main centres for classical music and opera – MUPA or the Palace of Music, the Erkel Szinhaz and the Liszt Academy.
MUPA has the state-of-the-art Bela Bartok Concert Hall with one of the best acoustics in Europe. It is the home of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, one of the best orchestras in the world, often conducted by its founder the brilliant Ivan Fischer. MUPA also hosts the annual Wagner Days in June, founded by Ivan’s brother Adam Fischer, where you can most years uniquely hear the entire Ring Cycle on successive days. This year’s Wagner Days is completely sold out. Tickets for next year go on sale online soon but you have to be quick.
MUPA is just by the Danube and has a roof terrace. You can sit out on the terrace in the warmer weather and sup a decent plonk costing not more than a couple of quid, which you can bring with you, although there are also bars in the building.
The Hungarian State Opera House itself has been closed for well over two years for refurbishment and there seems little sign of that ending any time soon. Still worth a visit for a tour, though. Although smaller than the Vienna State Opera House (for reasons of imperial hauteur), it is more ornate inside.
As a result of the refurbishment, all the state opera productions currently take place at the Erkel Szinhaz. This has its advantages as the acoustic and the view of the stage, especially in the cheap seats, is far superior to the State Opera House. The state opera can’t afford the international stars or expensive sets, but they make up for it with very good local singers and some innovative productions. They are staging Wagner’s Parsifal, Verdi’s Don Carlos and Richard Strauss’s Die Frau Ohne Schatten in the next couple of months. They currently have a funny production of Rossini’s, An Italian Girl in Algiers, and have just finished a good production of Verdi’s Aida. They have also recently staged two lesser performed works by Puccini, a quirky production of La Fanciulla Del West and a very good production of Il Trittico. However, avoid Hungarian nationalist operas by Erkel himself which are real stinkers.
The Liszt Academy hosts chamber and symphony concerts. Budapest has a number of other very good orchestras, including Concerto Budapest who just hosted a day-long Mozart festival and the Orfeo Orchestra and Purcell Choir who specialise in the baroque and classical period repertoire. I also saw a very good student production of Cimarosa’s very rarely performed Il Matrimonio Segreto at the Academy recently.
Now for prices. Hungary is outside the Euro zone and has the Hungarian forint as its currency. At the time of writing, this exchanges for around 387 forints. The cheapest tickets at MUPA tend to be around £6.50. The cheapest at Erkel are just under £5 but only £2.60 on Saturday and Sunday morning and you can often self-upgrade by moving to a more expensive seat which is acceptable in Hungary providing someone else isn’t sitting in it!
Finally, on current exchange rates the Liszt Academy’s cheapest seats can be around £7 but it’s better not to be upstairs on the side. If you book online and to guarantee the seats you want that is best, make sure you go to the websites for MUPA the Erkel Szinhaz and the Liszt Academy. Booking agents will pretend only the most expensive seats are available.
Finally, there are regular flights from Edinburgh airport and a round trip can be as little as £60 and rooms can be obtained for as little as £60 per night for two.