THE HUNGARIANS ARE COMING!

We are particularly pleased to announce that in association with The Hungarian Cultural Centre, and with the participation of soloists from the Hungarian State Opera we will be presenting the first UK performances of

Hunyadi László

The opera will be sung in Hungarian with English Surtitles   (At Sherborne these will not be visible from the last six or seven rows in the Stalls)

PERFORMANCES

Sherborne School Hall - Friday 15th & Saturday 16th August at 7.00 pm.

 Tickets £16 upwards (after 14th July) from The Dorset Music House, 22 Cheap Street, Sherborne, Dorset, DT9 3PX.    Tel No. 01935 816332 (office hours only).

UCL Bloomsbury Theatre - Monday 18th August at 7.30 pm. 

               Tickets £30 and £18 from Box Office (0207 388 8822)

or click here to book on line

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE OPERA

The great Governor and subsequently Captain General of Hungary, János Hunyadi, died (of plague) in 1456 after a brilliant career spent unifying, pacifying and defending the kingdom.  His resistance to and comprehensive defeat of the Turks in 1456 eliminated any serious threat from that quarter for the next 60 years.  He had been active in securing the Hungarian throne for László V, but after his death factions around the young King conspired against the Hunyadi clan. The King’s uncle, Ulrik Cilley, was the new Governor; he and János’ old ally Gara united against the next generation of Hunyadis and attempted to wrest much of their power and property from them.

SYNOPSIS OF THE OPERA

Act I     The Hunyadi stronghold at Nándorfehérvár (now Belgrade)

Hunyadi supporters and his young brother Mátyás (soprano) are awaiting Hunyadi László’s return from the national assembly.  László (tenor) appears and tries to allay his men’s suspicions over his conciliatory attitude to the young King László V and the Regent of Hungary, Cilley Ulrik.  The King (tenor) arrives with his retinue, including Cilley (baritone), whose intention is to murder Hunyadi László and seize the castle.  The plot is discovered and Cilley is killed as he attacks the unarmed László.  The King, much alarmed at the death of his uncle and advisor, promises peace and reconciliation.  The crowd is won over.

Act II    The Hunyadi castle of Temesvár (now Timisoara, Romania)

Erzsébet Szilágyi (soprano), János’ widow, still in deep mourning, describes a nightmare in which she saw the execution of László, her elder son.  The King arrives, and assures her of his goodwill.  However, he catches sight of Mária (soprano), László’s fiancée and daughter of Gara (baritone), the Governor-General, and is instantly smitten.  In a soliloquy Gara exults that he can now manipulate the King, and muses on his own thirst for power.

Erzsébet and her two sons are delighted to be together and full of hope for the future.  Gara summons the two Hunyadis to the King’s presence, and Erzsébet is once again gripped by wild foreboding.  Her sons return to tell her of the King’s gracious behaviour to them, and Erzsébet is reassured.

László and Mária rhapsodise in the moonlight about their love and hopes for the future.  Their wedding is to be in Buda at the King’s invitation. 

In a chapel, the King proclaims that Erzsébet shall be a mother to him and the Hunyadi sons shall be as his brothers.  There is general rejoicing.  A religious procession enters, and finally the King (after much nervous hesitation) swears on the bible to renounce vengeance for Cilley’s death.

Act III    The King’s apartments in Buda Castle

The King is tormented by his obsession with Mária.  Gara enters, and tells him that Mária shall be his, if he will only order the execution of the alleged traitor Hunyadi László, who has ‘plotted his murder’ during the wedding.  The King is easily convinced.  Left alone, Gara exults again.

The scene changes to the castle grounds, decorated for the wedding of László and Mária. The happy couple enter and the guests acclaim them.  Csárdás dancers entertain the company.  Gara enters with armed men, and Mária is distraught as László is dragged away.

In a dungeon cell in Buda Castle László broods bitterly on the trap he has fallen into and on the end of all his hopes of happiness.  Mária enters, to his astonished joy, and tells him she has bribed the guards, and his men are waiting outside to get him away to safety.  László hesitates, still trusting in the King’s honour.  Gara appears, dashing any such hopes.  The lovers bid each other a last farewell and Mária is dragged out as Gara disowns her.  László is marched away to his death.

In St George’s Square in Buda a scaffold has been erected.  A solemn funeral march is heard.    Erzsébet, wild with grief, prays for her son and rails against his captors.  László protests his innocence to the hostile crowd.  The headsman fails three times to strike a fatal blow, and Erzsébet and the crowd demand mercy, as is the law.  Gara orders him to strike again and László dies.

SUBSEQUENT HISTORICAL EVENTS

Erzsébet and her brother Mihály Szilágyi led an uprising against the King and his supporters.  The King fled to Prague, taking with him as hostage Mátyás, László’s younger brother.  The King died in Prague, aged not yet 18; Gara and other powerful men at court compromised in order to retain influence, and Mátyás was elected King of Hungary in 1458.  Known as Matthias Corvinus, he reigned with great authority until his death in 1490.  He combined political savvy with a deeply cultured mind and a love of the arts, and went down in history as Hungary’s Renaissance prince.

Note: Throughout this account the usual English manner of putting the first name before the surname has been used, with the sole exception of Hunyadi László (often referred to only by his first name 'László') where the Hungarian rule has been applied.

In the times of King Matthias, Hungary was a Renaissance cultural centre in Europe. Then, in the 19^th century, in the “Reformed Ages”, Hungarian cultural life flourished again, when Ferenc Erkel laid the foundation for a true Hungarian national opera by composing Hunyadi László, his second and most popular piece. Although Hungary has often been a scene of historical turmoil, the Hungarian’s love for music and arts has never changed.

A year of Hungarian cultural celebration “Magyar Magic  Hungary in Focus 2004” is to present this rich cultural heritage next year marking Hungary’s joining the EU. From November 2003 Magyar Magic is running for a year in London and regional centres in the UK. We are very proud to present the UK première of Hunyadi László as a part of the Summer Preview for next year’s Magyar Magic celebrations.

PRINCIPAL BIOGRAPHIES

DOMINIC WHEELER (CONDUCTOR) Born in Dorset, Dominic Wheeler studied at Clare College, Cambridge, the Royal College of Music and the Liszt-Akademie in Budapest.   His operatic engagements include: for English National Opera, The Turk in Italy, War and Peace, The Capture of Troy; for Opera North, L’Elisir d’Amore, Don Giovanni, The Barber of Seville; for Scottish Opera, Don Giovanni and Alceste (also at the Opéra de Nice); for Opera New Zealand, Manon; for English Touring Opera, The Pearl Fishers, The Marriage of Figaro, Fidelio and Macbeth; for CBTO, Faust; for ENO Contemporary Studio, the première of The Maids (John Lunn) at The Lyric Hammersmith; for Trinity College of Music, La Voix Humaine; for Batignano, Don Giovanni, Giganti della Montagna (Federico Amendola - world première), Salome (Stradella), the Italian premières of Peri’s Euridice (arr. Stephen Oliver) and Candide;  for Longborough, Die Zauberflöte;  for Chelsea Opera Group Lucrezia Borgia;  for Holland Park, Werther.

His concert engagements include the opening concert in the Norwich Festival with the BBC Concert Orchestra, Messiah and the Mozart C Minor Mass with the English Northern Philharmonia and Leeds Philharmonic chorus, the Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle at Aldeburgh. Current season/future plans include Rhinegold for ENO, La Princesse (Saint-Saens) at the Royal Academy of Music, and a programme of Russian music with the BBC Singers. Dorset Opera is delighted to welcome Dominic Wheeler, who accepted the position of Conductor at very short notice on the sudden death of Patrick Shelley.  He was a Music Scholar at Sherborne School and while there took part in Dorset Opera productions both as a member of the chorus and as répétiteur.

MICHAEL BEAUCHAMP (DIRECTOR) was born in London, studied at Durham University, and trained at the Glyndebourne Festival. From 1973-1975 he was a staff producer at Sadlers Wells/English National Opera, and 1975-1980 a resident producer with the Australian Opera in Sydney. In Australia and New Zealand he has some thirty original productions to his credit, including Happy End, La Bohème, The Rake’s Progress, Rigoletto, Lucia di Lammermoor, The Coronation of Poppea, La Clemenza di Tito, and The Beggar’s Opera. He also oversaw revivals of many productions in Sydney, including Lucia di Lammermoor with Dame Joan Sutherland. In 1988 he was a director of special projects for the Australian Bicentennial. Since returning to Europe he has worked at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, Morley Opera, Iceland Opera, the Londonderry Two Cathedrals Festival, Washington Opera; and he has taught at colleges in London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Amsterdam, and at Yale (The Tales of Hoffmann), and the Cambridge University Opera Society (Riders to the Sea, Fritz Hart/The Diary of One who Disappeared). Previous productions for Dorset Opera include Aïda, La Gioconda and Salvator Rosa.

HOWARD LLOYD (DESIGNER) was born in Dorset. Howard trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. In 2001, Howard was selected as one of the 12 Linbury Biennial Stage Design Finalists, where he worked for the Welsh National Opera (Kat'a Kabanova), exhibiting his designs at the National Theatre. Theatre credits include : Destiny (David Edgar) - Battersea Arts Centre 2003, Non-Sexual Kissing - Cambridge Footlights National Tour 2003, Norma - Dorset Opera 2002, City of Angels - Bute Theatre, Cardiff, 2001, Berstein's Mass - BBC Music Live 2000, St. David's Hall Cardiff. Television and Film Credits inlcude : The Eyes of Vince Magrino - BBC / Fugitive, Mile High - Sky TV, The Other Side - NOW TV / TWI, Beacons - Channel 4, A Light in the City - BBC Wales / Michael Bogdanov, Operation Good Guys III - BBC / Fugitive. Howard also continues to Design Assist some of the worlds top designers such as Bob Crowley, John Napier, Mark Thompson, Paul Brown, and more recently on a re-design of the musical Taboo with Tim Goodchild for Broadway. Future work includes art direction on a feature film and theatre productions in both London and Wales.

ROSE-MARIE FARKAS (ERZSÉBET) is a Hungarian who was born in Cluj, Romania and gained her early musical education in the Music School there, going on to the Gh. Dima Musical Academy in Cluj, where she studied singing with Edith Simon.  From there she went to the Franz Liszt Academy in Györ, Hungary.  She has won numerous prizes and awards, including first prize for opera in the Erkel-Kodály International Competition, Budapest, the Wagner prize in the Francesco Vinas Competition in Barcelona, a special prize in the Opera and Bel Canto Competition, Antwerp, and, both in Hungary, the Mándy Iván prize for best young singer and the Bartók-Pásztory prize.  She was a member of the Hungarian Opera in Cluj and of the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest, and in 1997 was awarded a scholarship to Bayreuth.  She has since sung extensively in Germany, Romania and throughout Hungary both on stage and in concert.  Her repertoire includes Amelia Un ballo in maschera , Leonora Il trovatore, the title rôle Aïda, Abigaille Nabucco, Violetta La traviata, Alice Ford Falstaff, Countess Le nozze di Figaro, Fiordiligi Così fan tutte, Melinda Bánk Bán, Anaide Mosè in Egitto, Elsa Lohengrin, Elisabeth Tannhäuser, Tatyana Eugene Onegin, the title rôle Tosca, and Margarita and Elena Mefistofele. She is equally at home in oratorio and on the recital platform, particularly in songs by the 19^th and early 20^th century German and French composers and by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov.  The rôle of Erzsébet is one of her favourites.

INGRID KERTESI (MÁRIA) launched her career by stepping in, as a very young singer, at shortest notice to replace an indisposed ‘Olympia’ at the Opera House in Graz, to great critical and public acclaim.  Since then she has assumed a vast and varied number of rôles, and as lead coloratura soprano with the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest her successes with critics and public alike continue to mount up. She has performed widely across Europe;  among the many cities she has appeared in are Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Paris, Prague, Rome, Turin, Verona, Vienna and Warsaw under conductors such as Davis, Gardelli, Humburg, Kocsis, Rilling and Gönnenwein.  She is also building up an impressive discography with over 20 CD credits to date and more on the way.

Ingrid Kertesi initially studied ‘cello, and then turned seriously to singing, specialising in Opera Studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music.  Her progress was marked by a series of prestigious prizes and scholarships, including a Special Prize at the Barcelona ‘Vinas’ Singing Competition, First Prize at the ‘New Voices’ competition for prizewinners at Gütersloh, a scholarship to study in Stuttgart Musical Academy with Szilvia Geszty, and the Juventus Prize at the Hungarian State Opera.

Her repertoire includes Norina Don Pasquale, Adina L’elisir d’amore, title rôle Lucia di Lammermoor, Melinda Bánk Bán, Vespina L’infedeltá delusa, Sophie Werther, Despina Così fan tutte, Blonde Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Zerlina Don Giovanni, Susanna Le nozze di Figaro, Olympia Les contes d’Hoffmann, Rosina Il barbieri di Siviglia, Adèle Die Fledermaus, Sophie Der Rosenkavalier,  Nanetta Falstaff, Gilda Rigoletto, Oscar Un ballo in maschera.  She also has a wide repertoire both on the oratorio and the recital stage, from Bach and Bartok to Verdi and Vivaldi

MICHELE KALMANDI (GARA) showed early musical talent.  By the age of five he was learning the piano, followed later by the classical guitar.  He started his singing studies in Romania, at the G Dima Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca.  Aged barely 24, he earned his excellent diploma singing the title rôle in Nabucco. He then moved to Budapest to further his studies, his teacher being Dr. Jenö Sipos, himself a pupil of the great Italian baritone Riccardo Stracciari.

Michele Kalmandi has been a Principal Soloist at the Hungarian State Opera since 1988.  In 1990 he won the Juventus prize, the premier annual award.  His international career began in 1989, when he was the baritone soloist in in Liszt’s Cantico del Sol in the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania.  Since then he has sung world-wide, including among many other venues at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, Montpelier Opera, Bergen Opera, Manchester Free Trade Hall, the Savolinna Festival, the Stadttheater Karlsruhe, Perth (Australia), Wellington, the Société Philharmonique of Montreal, the Schauspielhaus Berlin, the National Theatre Warsaw, the Grosse Festspielhaus Salzburg, the Teatro San Carlo Naples and the Teatro dell’Opera Rome.  He has worked with a great many eminent conductors, including Alain Lombard, Kent Nagano, Lamberto Gardelli and Tamás Vásáry.

He sings all the main baritone rôles including Amonasro Aïda, Don Carlo La forza del destino, Lord Henry Ashton Lucia di Lammermoor, Barnaba La gioconda, Scarpia Tosca, Gérard Andrea Chénier, the Dutchman Der fliegende Holländer. In the last two years alone his rôles have included among many others the title rôle Nabucco, the bass soloist in the Verdi Requiem and the Mozart Requiem (both with Vásáry), Germont La traviata, Escamillo Carmen, Jokanaan Salome, di Luna Il trovatore, Renato Un ballo in maschera, the title rôle Macbeth, and Duke Bluebeard Bluebeard’s Castle.  He also has many CDs and DVDs to his credit.