First international opera exam festival of the Liszt Academy a huge success
Liszt Academy's firtst Opera Exam Festival staged between 23-26 January 2014 concluded with full-house performances and the guest appearance of music and arts institutions of higher education from three cities in Europe.
The Budapest opera exams that have been drawing in large audiences for years finally resulted in the organization of a four-day festival in 2014. Students of the Department of Vocal Studies headed by Andrea Meláth, together with young composers, recreated Mozart's musical stage world under the guidance of professor of direction and programme director András Almási-Tóth, staging – on two occasions – the "never-seen-before" (and more accurately, not existing before this) fictive Mozart opera made up of concert arias and entitled The Don Juan Project. The University College of Opera Stockholm arrived in Budapest with a contemporary performance treading the boundaries between dance theatre and oratorio. Electric Body Songs examines the frameworks of opera and employs the very latest technical equipment in its staging. The Conservatorio di Musica "Luigi Cherubini" in Florence took a youthful perspective of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, while the Academy of Dramatic Art Zagreb, Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb and the Zagreb Music Academy brought Stravinsky's classic, The Soldier's Tale.
"This challenge is of primary importance for the students themselves, so they can see where they stand with their work and what aspirations there are in other countries," András Csonka, organizer of the event and cultural director of the Liszt Academy, told the Hungarian news agency MTI. The fundamental idea behind the review that wound up on Sunday was for exam pieces by students of the opera department of the Liszt Academy to receive a wider public reception, for them to gain performance experience and feedback, said Csonka, adding that in the wake of this year's success (with full houses for all performances) the plan is to continue the festival.
The concept of the Opera Exam Festival originated with Éva Marton – the globally acclaimed opera singer who headed the Department of Vocal Studies until 2013 and currently teaches there as professor emeritus – and András Almási-Tóth, director of the Liszt Academy's opera programme. The director, who is open to daring solutions and contemporary music, spoke about the core concepts of the series in an interview published in the festival programme: "Opera exams open up new dimensions not just in the interpretation of well-known works but in rediscovering forgotten pieces or putting new works on the stage. There are no pressures from producers or the need to sell the performance; they can experiment bravely, undertaking risky premieres, there is no ‘production line' feeling, no double roles, no stepping in at the last moment, no restrictions other than that students should develop and learn from it. They are granted unbelievable freedom in the selection of theme and work, and in their realization. Opera exams are capable of giving back opera's primeval, pure form to the audience, where the joy of play and discovery is the only guiding principle."
"Students of the opera department have proved themselves both in the area of extremely difficult singing tasks, and in the theatrical challenges they were faced with. My thanks go to our professors for their thorough preparation. I find the fruitful cooperation between the opera department and the Department of Composition to be a particular pleasure: Mozart arias are threaded together with musical units packed with excellent concepts and ideas and composed by the students of composition," said Dr. Andrea Vigh, President of the Liszt Academy since 1 November 2013, in her welcoming address. The full text can be read on the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music educational website, which is being totally overhauled. The president, who also expressed her thanks to the Hungarian Academy of Arts, sponsor of the Opera Exam Festival, wound up her address with the following words: "It showed the individual face of the Liszt Academy with original, fresh and innovative, highly professional productions. We have succeeded in realizing a project that harmonizes with the spirit of the university, the high standard of concert organization, and the harmonization of traditions and at the same time new, progressive concepts."