kamara.hu/2 Presented by Liszt Academy

Frida and Diego, Clara and Robert, Izabella and Dénes – inspiring romances and extraordinary legacies. To open the 2026 Kamara.hu Festival, the legendary partnership of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera finds its musical mirror in the works of the Schumanns, performed by the festival’s own husband-and-wife artistic directors.

Vocals and the vibrant sounds of Mexican and Spanish music take centre stage for Friday’s performance. The evening opens with a Mexican vocalist and Hungarian guitarist, performing three Spanish songs by Federico García Lorca, a figure celebrated primarily as a poet and playwright, but who was also a gifted composer and painter. They will also perform one of the most poignant tales of the Mexican folk tradition: La Llorona. This haunting legend speaks of solitude and passion, birth and death, murder and mourning, all told through the eyes of a woman marked by tragedy.

It is a narrative that feels intimately linked to Frida Kahlo, who explored these very themes with such raw, unflinching courage following the loss of her own children. The visceral atmosphere of her paintings finds a musical parallel in Schumann’s violin sonata; set in a “demonic” D minor, the violin and piano engage in a restless, fiercely passionate dialogue.

The second half of the programme features Poulenc’s powerful mono-opera, capturing the final, desperate telephone conversation of a woman driven to suicide by abandonment – a choice of repertoire that serves as a somber reflection on the enduring mystery surrounding Frida’s own death.

The artistic directors dedicate this year’s festival to the memory of Imre Földes, the beloved and highly respected professor of the Liszt Academy, who passed away recently.