1773 is an important date in the history of puppetry: this was when Joseph Haydn’s first marionette opera, Philemon and Baucis was premièred at Eszterháza. It took place in the east wing of the French garden in the recently built puppet theatre in the presence of Empress Maria Theresa. Sadly, no drawing or picture of the theatre has survived but we do have a number of descriptions, which give us an idea of the gloriously furnished puppet theatre built by Prince Nicholas Esterházy. The aim of our... exhibition is to present a small history of puppets and their era and to show the world of the marionettes, the puppets operated by wire. Haydn was imbued with a splendid and ironic humour and very much enjoyed the puppet theatre and even had a small puppet theatre of his own at Kismarton (today Eisenstadt, Austria). It is understandable that he was happy to compose puppet operas, most of which have been entirely lost over time. Until 1953 we believed only a single aria from Philemon and Baucis had survived, but then in Paris the manuscript of the entire work was found. A new world première took place, courtesy of the Aurora Marionette Ensemble, in Budapest in September 1956 at the National Salon, along with a work by Bartók, The Wooden Prince. The exhibition is given greater relevance by the Budapest Kolibri Theatre’s performance of Haydn’s opera L’Infedelta delusa. The exhibited puppets, which were designed by Klaudia Orosz, were created for a repertoire piece of the theatre, Mozart’s opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
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.