The name Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) is not an unfamiliar one to the BDO's audience. His incredibly rich oeuvre encompasses nearly every genre, from art songs to concertos and opera. Nevertheless, he is known to most of us as one of the greatest Hollywood composers of the era, whose genius was recognised by the film industry of the time with two Oscars.
Indeed, Korngold always thought in terms of theatre, cinema, scenes and characters. This is why we felt his works were the perfect complement to Shakespeare's opulent comedy. This performance features not only excerpts from the incidental music he composed for Much Ado About Nothing, but also ones from his Violin Concerto and other shorter works. In putting together the production, Gábor Hollerung freely selected the musical passages from the composer's extensive oeuvre that best support t...he scenes in the play. The aim was to create a performance that actually required the orchestra and the actors to interact with each other dramatically. Sometimes the orchestra "comments” on the events on stage, or "shares its opinion” about the actions and/or traits of the characters - all using the tools of music, of course. Korngold proved to be the perfect partner for this, as he liked to employ leitmotifs to portray characters, allowing him to immediately impress key traits in the audience's mind. In order to prevent the performance from running late into the night, the creative team were forced - in a slightly sacrilegious fashion - to greatly abridge Shakespeare's masterpiece, although of course without harming the play's dramaturgy. This solution allows the music more space, giving rise to almost a new kind of symphonic theatre.
Hungarian-language performance.
Partner: National Theatre of Szeged
Presented by: Budafok Dohnanyi Orchestra, Müpa Budapest
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.
Refreshments – Without the Queue
Thanks to our new catering service at the Átrium Snack Bar, you can forget about waiting in line during intermissions for some refreshments and get your order prepped especially for you by the time the intermission actually starts. Find out more about pre-ordering 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.