Béla Bartók came across the story of The Miraculous Mandarin by Menyhért Lengyel in the pages of Nyugat in 1917, and began setting it to music in 1918. Having completed the composition in May 1919, he finished orchestrating the work in 1924. In Lengyel’s pantomime scenario, Bartók perceived the great questions of human existence, and the archetypes of man and woman, passion and vulnerability, pain and ecstasy. He had only one opportunity to see the ballet performed on stage himself, at the 1926 ...première conducted by Jenő Szenkár in Cologne, which ended in scandal. Further performances were prohibited and the Budapest première set to take place in 1931 also fell through. The work would win its deserved place on stages and in concert halls in Hungary only after 1956. The libretto to Bluebeard’s Castle, a one-act opera with two singing roles, was written in 1910 by the fashionable symbolist poet Béla Balázs, a member of the circle of Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. Bartók composed his opera in 1911, submitting it in the same year for the opera competition of the Lipótváros Casino; however, the jury rejected it as unsuitable for performance. Following the success of The Wooden Prince, the Budapest Opera House requested the score to Bluebeard’s Castle from Bartók. The première in May 1918 was conducted by Egisto Tango, with Oszkár Kálmán singing the role of Bluebeard and Olga Haselbeck as Judith.
Parking information
We wish to inform you that in the event that Müpa Budapest's underground garage and outdoor car park are operating at full capacity, it is advisable to plan for increased waiting times when you arrive. In order to avoid this, we recommend that you depart for our events in time, so that you you can find the ideal parking spot quickly and smoothly and arrive for our performance in comfort. The Müpa Budapest underground garage gates will be operated by an automatic number plate recognition system. Parking is free of charge for visitors with tickets to any of our paid performances on that given day. The detailed parking policy of Müpa Budapest is available here.
Safe ticket purchase
Dear Visitors, please note that only tickets purchased from the Müpa website and official ticket offices are guaranteed to be valid. To avoid possible inconvenience, we suggest buying tickets to our performances and concerts via the mupa.hu website, the Interticket national network (jegy.hu) or at our official ticket offices.