Etelka Csavlek, Ingrid Kertesi, Andrea Ulbrich, Bernadett Wiedemann, Péter Kelen, András Molnár, Béla Perencz, Ferenc Valter – voice Choir (choirmaster: Máté Szabó Sípos) and Orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera House Conductor: János Kovács Bartók: Five Hungarian Folksongs Kodály: Psalmus Hungaricus Wagner: Parsifal – Prelude and Good Friday Spell Wagner: Die Walküre – Wotan's farewell and Magic Fire Music R. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier – final scene János Ferencsik was one of the greatest personalities of 20th century Hungarian performers. He was born in Budapest on January 18th 1907, and studied piano, violin, organ and composition. At the age of twenty, he began working at the Opera House as a rehearsal pianist, which he did for free (as was customary then). It marked a lifetime’s commitment to musical theatre and he later became the opera house’s principal conductor and then chief music director. From 1953 until his death in 1984, Ferencsik was also the chief music director of the State Concert Orchestra, and from 1960 to 1966, the president-conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. As a conductor, he travelled the world, working as an assistant to Toscanini at Bayreuth, and at the Vienna State Opera. He conducted the final Budapest concert of Béla Bartók and Ditta Pásztory and also the premiere of the Miraculous Mandarin at the La Scala Milan. Ferencsik made numerous recordings in Hungary and abroad, many receiving international plaudits, while he himself was twice awarded the Kossuth Prize. To mark the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, this concert performs selections from operas and concerts most associated with Ferencsik’s art, performed by the finest singers and conductors from Hungarian operatic life as well as the orchestra and choir of his former “home” theatre.

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