Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1987. július-december (41. évfolyam, 26-48. szám)
1987-12-24 / 48. szám
Thursday, Dec. 24. 1987. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZÓ 11. Our Man at the Met Denes Gulyas's career as an opera singer took off as soon as he graduated from the Academy of Music in Budapest. Contracts came pouring in from one European city after another: Bonn, for instance, where he gave a series of performances in Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito with Yehudi Menuhin conducting. A landmark came in 1981, .when he was among the 16 winners out of 500 contestants in the first international Pavarotti singing competition. Two years later Pavarotti said he wouldn't sing the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto any ( more, and presented the part to Gulyas. He made his Houston debut with it. After that came Dallas, Washington, Miami, San Francisco and a four-year contract with the New York Met. Thermal Waters Hungary is among the world's richest countries as far as geothermal energy is concerned. Eight thousand billion cubic meters of high-temperature water can be drawn to the surface over a total of 70% of the country's area. Some hydrologists believe that beneath Hungary the rock contains more geothermal energy than the world's three other largest geothermal reserves taken together. Four rabbinical students finishing their studies this year were ordained rabbi in the synagogue of the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary. Two of them, Isac Fuchs and Yuri Korzenevitsh will work in their homeland in the Soviet Union. In previous years several other rabbinical students, arriving from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries to study in Hungary, were ordained in the Hungarian Rabbinical Seminary. The Executive Committee of the World Jewish Congress held its conference for the first time in Budapest. Delegates arriving from all parts of the world listened to lectures on the development of East-West relations, questions of Christian-Jewish dialogue. They discussed problems in connection with anti- Semitism and the impeachment of war criminals, regional subjects, as well as the organization's finances. Participants of the conference became acquainted with the life of Hungarian people and Budapest's cultural life. Leaders of the international organization were received by several figures of Hungarian public life, too. Give this page to a friend ! ABOUT HUGO GELLERT Hugo Gellert, whose papers are described in the Southeast regional report in a recent issue, represents an extreme example of an artist who devoted his talent to political purposes. He first achieved recognition as a contributor of drawings to the old Masses magazine, a socialist publication suppressed by the government in 1917 and now regarded as a repository of extraordinary aesthetic quality. Except for a brief fling with avant-garde decorative design in the early 19'20s and occasional work for the New Yorker, he spent the rest of a very long career producing illustrations, cartoons, and murals that dealt directly with social issues. A slight, dapper figure with a confident, purposeful manner, he lived for years in a penthouse apartment atop the Chelsea Hotel. The heady ideological atmosphere of the 1930s called forth unsuspected organizational gifts, and Gellert sprang into action as a militant leader of politically aroused artists. His name appears on innumerable committees* and executive boards of the period; but after the war, he sank into an obscurity so prolonged that he all but disappeared from public view. In a last minute reprieve, he was discovered by several young historians seeking firsthand information from a living, breathing survivor of the Masses group of nearly seventy years earlier. In 1985, ninety-two years old, he spoke at a Whitney Museum symposium, projecting immense dignity and a still uncompromising social commitment. His death a few months later was followed by a remarkably succesful gallery exhibition. TID-BITS Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him. *** If you think that you see the light at the end of the tunnel, just make sure it is not an oncoming train. *** Happiness doesn't come from doing what we like to do, but from liking what we have to do. *** If we think that we know it all, maybe we just can't remember it all at once. Correction: Last week issue 12/17/87 in the article "How to Repair the Economy" there is a reference to what a billion dollars can do if placed in a peace economy. We listed Education 187,000 Housing 100,000 Transportation 92,000 Health 130,000 The figures were supposed to represent jobs. Inadvertently a dollar sign was used creating confusion. László Moholy-Nagy Painter b. 1895 (Bacsborsod), d. 1946 (Chicago) A painter, photographer and writer on art, he taught at the Bauhaus in Weimar and then in Dessau, as an assistant to Walter Gropius, leader of the Bauhaus school. Moholy-Nagy then set up the New Bauhaus in Chicago. He studied the functioning of modern art and was the initiator of kinetic art. Janos Neumann Mathematician b. 1903 (Budapest), d. 1957 (Washington, D.C.) He was among the outstanding mathematicians of the century, laying the precise foundations of the theory of sets, game theory and operation research. He took part in research into the release of nuclear energy, and the basic notions behind the electronic computer came from him. Neumann chaired the American Society of Mathematics from 1951 to 1953, was a member of scientific academies in the US, Italy and Holland, and held honorary doctorates from Princeton, Harvard, and Columbia. In 1956 the US Atomic Energy Commission awarded him the Enrico Fermi prize. Jenó Ormándy Conductor b. 1899 (Budapest), d. 1985 (Philadelphia) At the tender age of 17 he was appointed professor of the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. He moved to the States in 1921, beginning his career as a conductor under Stokowski with the Philadelphia orchestra, whose director of music he became in 1938, remaining for 35 years. He made countless successful recordings. Compiled by Judit Banki Paprika. Those who have visited Hungary remember us for the spice paprika that adds piquancy to the food, Hungarian cooks are extremely fond of paprika, but curiously, this condiment arrived here from South America. It was being grown in the 16th c in Hungarian aristocratic gardens, but only as a decorative plant occasionally used a medicine. From the 18th c onwards it spread across the country as a spice. The main growing districts are Szeged and Kalocsa. Paprika is also a favorite motif in folk design.
