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© Pályi Zsófia
The Marriage of Figaro
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July 2025  | ||||||
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The Marriage of Figaro - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Comic opera in four acts, in Italian, with Hungarian, English, and Italian surtitles
Performance length: 3 hours 40 minutes, with 1 intermission.
Standing at the centre of this opera relating, with scintillating wit, the chaotic events of the "day of madness" and a wedding nearly gone up in smoke are the already familiar and clever barber from Seville and his spirited love, Susanna. But there is also much, much more... Human emotions, desires, dreams and disappointments, which Mozart's balanced and ornate music depicts not only with irony, but also with humanity.
Judit Galgóczy's direction focuses on the dynamic and pulsating game of everyone appearing different to what they are and desiring something other than what they have. On the stage, everything is alive, pulsing and moving, as the music swells forth...
Synopsis
ACT I
Figaro - he has given up his barber's shop to become Almaviva's personal servant, and today he is to marry Susanna, Countess Almaviva's chambermaid. The Count has obligingly given them married quarters in the room connecting his bedroom and the Countess'. Everybody in the castle except Figaro knows that the Count, who has grown tired of Rosina, and of pursuing the village girls for that matter, now fancies Susanna. Hence the convenience of the bedroom arrangements. Susanna intends to outwit this plan, and hastens to put Figaro in the picture. Dr. Bartolo, the old lawyer, has never forgiven Figaro for defeating him in the battle over Rosina. He is giving lethal advice to Marcellina, his housekeeper who owns a written promise of marriage her by Figaro as security for a loan, and who therefore has an interest in the forthcoming wedding. Bartolo's advice is to ensure that Susanna repulses the Count's advances; he will then take Marcellina's side in a breach of promise case, and they will be revenged on Figaro. Marcellina has a brief catfight with Susanna, and then departs. Susanna's next visitor is Cherubino, a noble-born youth who has been cent to court as a sort of finishing school, but has chiefly been learning about women, and is always rousing the righteous (i.e. jealous) wrath of the Count. So that when the Count walks in to make up to Susanna, Cherubino has to hide behind a convenient nursing-chair. Almost at once the singing master Don Basilio comes to share the latest castle gossip with Susanna. Count Almaviva dodges behind the chair, and Cherubino dodges round into it. Susanna covers him with a cloak. Basilio's scandal about Cherubino infuriates the Count who leaves his hiding-place and, by mischance, discovers Cherubino. The page is hastily ordered to leave the castle and to up a commission in the Almaviva regiment; Figaro gives the boy some last-minute advice about military life.
ACT II
Countess Almaviva is sensitively aware of her position as wife to a notorious womanizer. But she is in the plot with Susanna, out with Figaro who proposes to embarrass Almaviva by rigging a double rendezvous. This will involve disguising Cherubino as a girl. Susanna gives the boy a dress rehearsal (he is still hanging about the castle) in the Countess' bedroom. Unfortunately the Count arrives, and Cherubino has to be hidden in the wardrobe. The worst is suspected but Susanna and Figaro manage to get the better of their matter, not with standing the drunken old gardener, Susanna's uncle Antonio, who firmly insists he has seen Cherubino. When all seems explained and Almaviva has begged his wife's pardon. Marcellina bursts in with Bartolo and Basilio and demands a break-of-promise trial. The Count is delighted to consent.
ACT III
The Count makes a rendezvous with Susanna for that night, though he overhears what she is plotting with Figaro. The litigants assemble and the Count supports the stammering notary, Don Curzio, in the judgement that Figaro must either repay Marcellina's loan or marry her. Figaro explains in evidence that he is a foundling of gentle birth, and Marcellina eventually discovers that she is his mother and Bartolo his father. They decide to celebrate a double wedding. The Countess and Susanna concoct a love letter from Susanna to the Count. Now the village girls led by the gardener's daughter Barbarina come to serenade the Countess. One of the 'girls' is recognized to be Cherubino in skirts, but Barbarina persuades the Count to let her marry the boy. The act ends with the double wedding as proposed.
ACT IV
Now we are in the garden, where the complication of lover's meetings is due to occur. Figaro suspects his wife of cuckolding him. But Susanna and the Countess exchange clothes, and in the end it is the Countess whom Cherubino and then the Count make violent love to, supposing her to be Susanna; and the lady whom the Count catches in a compromising situation with Figaro is not the Countess but Susanna in disguise. Almaviva has again to beg his wife's pardon, and everything ends happily.
Program and cast
Season 2024–2025 – Performances in July and August 2025
Conductor: Zsolt Hamar
The Count: Károly Szemerédy, Csaba Sándor
The Countess: Natália Tuznik, Andrea Brassói-Jőrös
Figaro: Krisztián Cser, Bence Pataki
Susanna: Boglárka Brindás, Rita Rácz
Marcellina: Mária Farkasréti
Bartolo: László Szvétek, István Rácz
Cherubino: Zsófia Kálnay, Laura Topolánszky
Don Curzio: János Szerekován, Zoltán Megyesi
Basilio: Botond Ódor, Artúr Szeleczki
Barbarina: student of the opera studio
Antonio: András Hábetler, Lőrinc Kósa
Featuring the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra and Chorus
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Librettist: Lorenzo da Ponte
Director: Judit Galgóczy
Set designer: Attila Csikós
Costume designer: Nelly Vágó
Choreographer: András Nádasdy
Hungarian translation by Ádám Nádasdy
English translation by Arthur Roger Crane
Head of the Children's Chorus: Nikolett Hajzer
Chorus director: Gábor Csiki
Season 2025–2026 – Performances in September 2025
Conductor: Gregory Vajda
Count Almaviva - Azat Malik, Gyula Orendt
Countess Almaviva - Natália Tuznik, Andrea Brassói-Jőrös
Figaro - Bence Pataki, Csaba Sándor
Susanna - Boglárka Brindás, Rita Rácz
Marcellina - Anna Csenge Fürjes, Mária Farkasréti
Bartolo - András Kiss, István Rácz
Cherubino - Vivienne Ortan (opera studio), Zsófia Kálnay
Don Curzio - Botond Pál (opera studio)
Basilio - Attila Erdős
Barbarina - Anija Lombard (opera studio)
Antonio - Boldizsár Zajkás
Featuring the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra, Chorus, and Children's Chorus
Director: Judit Galgóczy
Set designer: Attila Csikós
Costume designer: Nelly Vágó
Choreographer: András Nádasdy
Hungarian translation by Ádám Nádasdy
English translation by Arthur Roger Crane
Head of the Children's Chorus: Nikolett Hajzer
Chorus director: Gábor Csiki
Hungarian State Opera
STANDING ROOM TICKETS - INFORMATION IN CASE OF A FULL HOUSE!
If all the seats are sold out for the selected time, but you still want to see the production on that day, 84 of the extremely affordable standing seats will be sold at the theatre, 2 hours before the start of the performance, with which you can visit the gallery on the 3rd floor. Tickets can be purchased at the ticket office of the Budapest Opera House. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that the stage can only be seen to a limited extent from the standing places and the side seats, but at the same time, following the performance is also supported by television broadcasting on the spot.
The Opera House is not only one of the most significant art relic of Budapest, but the symbol of the Hungarian operatic tradition of more than three hundred years as well. The long-awaited moment in Hungarian opera life arrived on September 27, 1884, when, in the presence of Franz Joseph I. the Opera House was opened amid great pomp and ceremony. The event, however, erupted into a small scandal - the curious crowd broke into the entrance hall and overran the security guards in order to catch a glimpse of the splendid Palace on Sugar út. Designed by Mikós Ybl, a major figure of 19th century Hungarian architecture, the construction lived up to the highest expectations. Ornamentation included paintings and sculptures by leading figures of Hungarian art of the time: Károly Lotz, Bertalan Székely, Mór Than and Alajos Stróbl. The great bronze chandelier from Mainz and the stage machinery moda by the Asphaleia company of Vienna were both considered as cutting-edge technology at that time.
Many important artists were guests here including Gustav Mahler, the composer who was director in Budapest from 1887 to 1891. He founded the international prestige of the institution, performing Wagner operas as well as Magcagni’ Cavalleria Rusticana. The Hungarian State Opera has always maintained high professional standards, inviting international stars like Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Monserrat Caballé, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, José Cura, Thomas Hampson and Juan Diego Flórez to perform on its stage. The Hungarian cast include outstanding and renowed artists like Éva Marton, Ilona Tokody, Andrea Rost, Dénes Gulyás, Attila Fekete and Gábor Bretz.
© Pályi Zsófia
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