Bella Máté: A tavasz ébredése / CAFe Budapest 2015

Franz Wedekind’s ‘child tragedy’ (1891) discussed – in a way that created a scandal at the time – the conflict of desires and instincts rising in adolescence with the bourgeois order founded on repression and control. The highly talented youthful composer Máté Bella composed an opera as an exam performance for the students of the opera department of the Liszt Academy out of the still disturbing and powerful drama. András Almási-Tóth, the creator, librettist and director of the world premiere in 2012, speaking about the one-act opera, said: “I asked the newly graduated composer to write a piece expressly to the tone of students undergoing exams. I wrote the libretto from Franz Wedekind’s work, picking out motifs, and I may have abstracted the scenes a little to make them timeless, in other words, so that the libretto would not only refer to the time of its origin, that is, the late 19th century, yet not only the present, either. After all, the work is about a general and perennial problem, namely, how society deals with carnality. How it processes the needs of physicality, which, if denied at a certain age, for instance, in young people, can result in terrible tragedy.” The festival programme features the new production that won huge acclaim three years ago.

Wendla: Júlia Hajnóczy

Menyus: Gyula Rab

Marci: Botond Ódor

Director: Zita Szemere

Ilse / Mother: Lucine Sahakyan

Masked Gentleman: Csaba Gaál

Thea: Eszter Zavaros

Martha: Alexandra Ruszó

Featuring: UMZE Chamber Orchestra

Conductor: Gergely Vajda

Stage set and costumes: András Almási-Tóth

Musical assistant: Mónika Baja, Szabolcs Sándor

Assistant to the director: Zsófia Haás Vander

Choreography: Noémi Kulcsár

Libretto, based on Frank Wedekind’s drama: András Almási-Tóth

Director: András Almási-Tóth

Ticket price: HUF 1500

An event jointly organized with the Liszt Academy.