BUDAPEST WAGNER DAYS 2017

Artistic director and conductor: Ádám Fischer

With a decade-long history, the Budapest Wagner Days is a source of considerable pride: over the course of the past 10 years, the “Danube’s Bayreuth” has staged the complete Bayreuth Canon, i.e. all ten pieces performed on the Green Hill during the composer’s lifetime.

The staged performances feature the best Wagner singers year after year, presenting stars such as Waltraud Meier, Evelyn Herlitzius, Linda Watson, Annette Dasch, Christian Franz, Gerhard Siegel, Walter Fink, Iréne Theorin, Robert Dean Smith, Jay Hunter Morris, Elisabet Strid, James Rutherford, Bo Skovhus, Anja Kampe, Johan Botha or Matti Salminen. Following the artistic intentions of Wagner, each performance is a genuine Gesamtkunstwerk, offering the audience an all-round artistic experience, centred around the powerful music of the Maestro. The artistic director and conductor of the globally acclaimed event series is Kossuth Prize-winning Ádám Fischer. In addition to the four grandiose instalments of The Ring of the Nibelung and Parsifal, the Budapest Wagner Days in 2017 will also stage a concert opera version of Rienzi.

Budapest Wagner Days debuted in 2006 with two Parsifal performances, which in many people’s opinion surpassed their Bayreuth counterparts, launching the series and turning the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall which boasts excellent acoustics, as well as unique stage and intellectual dimensions, into an iconic destination for Wagner enthusiasts. The Ring of the Nibelung tetralogy, performed over four successive nights in the spirit of Wagner’s heritage, has become a returning production of the decade-old festival, enjoying the festivalgoers’ unwavering attention. Every year the Ring performances are accompanied by different Wagner pieces that are destined to immortality. In 2006 it was Parsifal that launched the Budapest Wagner Days series that grew into an acclaimed international festival. It was followed by Tristan and Isolde, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, The Mastersingers ofNuremberg, The Flying Dutchman and will feature his early work, Rienzi, scheduled for 2017.

https://www.mupa.hu/en/events/budapest-wagner-days/budapest-wagner-days-2017