Kodály: Háry János – The closing concert of the Budapest Spring Festival / BTF 2017

Featuring: Gabriella Balga (Örzse), Attila Dobák (Háry János), Péter Haumann (Napoleon), Musical Ensembles of the Hungarian Radio (choirmaster: Zoltán Pad, László Matos)

Conductor: Imre Palló

Director: Ferenc Anger

Háry was an enigma, a puzzle that was easy to understand but difficult to solve, wrote a British musical historian shortly after the premiere of Kodály’s opera, adding that it was simultaneously a joke, a satire, and some deeper meaning. Bence Szabolcsi found it similarly complex and thought-provoking when he wrote in 1926: “What looks out from behind the multiplicity of masks, the real face seen through the lies, epics, tales and adventures, is the tragedy of the Hungarian flare-up and the Hungarian dream. It is an unwritten tragedy, and even here it is told not by the libretto, but by Kodály’s music.”

In other words, Háry János is not only a colourful and laugh-inducing story told inventively, in music, but also a very complex piece – as regards both its theatrical potentials and deeper meaning –, which should call for reflection again and again. Ferenc Anger’s direction seeks to offer new considerations for this joint reflection.