Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1987. július-december (41. évfolyam, 26-48. szám)
1987-09-03 / 32. szám
Thursday, Sep. 3. 1987. 11. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO ■ ■ ................—..................... . .. . I Budapest is one of the great European music bargains in almost any season, but never more so than in autumn. On Sept. 15, the opulently restored Hungarian State Opera will open its 104th season, and on Oct. 20 the company's second - but equally first-rate - house, the Erkel Opera, reopens its doors. This means that, at the rate of six evenings plus Sunday matinees, the operagoer has 14 performances from which to choose any week. And the price for the best seats in either house (the State Opera is at 22 Népköztársaság Avenue, telephone 320-126, the Erkel at 30 Köztársaság Square, 330-540) ranges from less than $3 to a little more than $5, depending on the production, if you buy them at the box office. The rate goes up on the infrequent occasions when a guest star, who has to be paid in a scarce foreign currency, appears. Hotel concierges, who are usually able to get tickets even on the afternoon of the performance, charge a premium plus pickup fee, which may bring the price up to around $11 a ticket - still a great bargain by American or Western European standards. A convenient central agency sells tickets for all concerts and recitals. It is at 1 Vörösmarty Square (telephone 176-222, extension 593), across from the Gerbaud coffeehouse. AUTUMN FESTIVAL The fall season will be inaugurated, as has been the custom for many years, with the Budapest Festival Weeks, this year from Sept. 25 through Nov. 5, and featuring a festival-within-a-festival of Soviet music, opera and dance. It's highlight will be a visit by Moscow's Bolshoi Opera (Oct. 7 through 12), performing Mussorgsky's "Boris Godounov," Tchaikovsky's "Iolanthe" PLEASE GIVE THIS PAPER TO A FRIEND! and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Mozart and Salieri." During normal office hours, festival information can be obtained by calling 550-398. Tickets for events are available either at each theater's box office or, for concerts and recitals, at the central ticket agency on Vó'rősmarty Square. The Budapest homes of Hungary's greatest composers, Liszt and Bartdk, have been turned into museums where occasional concerts make for particularly vivid musical experiences. On Sept. 26, at 8 P.M., the Bartók Quartet will perform at the Béla Bartók Memorial House (29 Csalán Street). There will be concerts at the Ferenc (the first name of the composer, usually given in its Germanized form Franz) Liszt Museum (35 Vörösmarty Street) Sept. 12, 19 and 26, at 11 A.M. CASTLE HILL Castle Hill which rises imposingly above the Danube on the Buda side, is theatrical in its own way. The. seat of the Royal Palace since the 14th century, the narrow, elongated town that formed in the castle's precincts has been destroyed by every invader. The last to vent their destructiveness on the heart of the Hungarian state were the Germans, who in the winter of 1944-45 made Castle Hill their final redoubt. At is conquests by the Soviet Army, not a single house was inhabitable. With infinite care and working over many years, Hungary rebuilt the Var, or Castle- as the entire area around it is known- in the accretion of styles from Rennais- sance to rococo that had left their imprint on it through the centuries. No doubt this gives it a slightly artificial aspect. But since it is peopled by a fully representative cross-section of average citizens going about their quotidian chores and pleasures, as well as by university institutes, embassies and other public places, one would have to be pedantic indeed not to yield to the Castle's charms. More than the palace itself - now the home of separate museums of Hungarian history, painting and working- class movements - and the imposing Matthias Church, where the Habsburg emperors were crowned as kings of Hungary, it is the ordinary streets of this extraordinary quarter that give pleasure. Strolling at any time is a marvelous antidote when the modern world is too much with us. For sheer fairy tale beauty, the four adjacent rococo houses in tender pastel shadings that stretch from Nos. 54 to 62 on Uri Street are hard to beat. Their prettiness invites the suspension of disbelief in the controversy over the literal restoration of monuments. The upper terrace of the former Royal Palace, to which admission is free, provides a magnificent view of Budapest's distinctive cityscape, with boats plying the river under the many bridges that link the two cities the Danube divides. THREE MUSEUMS The Castle shelters, in addition to the big museums of the Royal Palace, three small, highly specialized ones of exceptional charm but easily overlooked. Admission to each is less than 10 cents, and kind, gray-haired women volunteer to find a common language to guide the visitor through the exhibits, while offering interesting asides on life in general and Hungary in particular. In a fine baroque palace at 7 Táncsics Street, a few steps from the Hilton Hotel, is the Museum of Music History, which offers, in addition to an attractive collection of old instruments and an exhibition devoted to Bartók, splendid views through its windows of the Danube across spires of baroque churches and gabled roofs. Beethoven slept in this palace in 1800, when he visited Budapest to give concerts in Castle Theater, now also restored, near the Royal Palace. A more specialized museum is at 4 Fortuna Street. Its two parts, to the left and right of the vaulted entrance way, are devoted to the art of sugar baking and candy making, a highly developed Hungarian craft, and to the commercial life of Budapest earlier this century. Both wings offer sweetly nostalgic views of the daily life of the not-too-distant past in a Mitteleuropa now sunk as deep as Atlantis, of coffeehouses and groceries, haberdasheries and pharmacies, decorated with wonderfully retro advertising posters and shop signs. It is easy to get lodging in private homes; among agencies offering the service are Budapest Tourist (5 Roosevelt Square; 173-555), Ibusz (open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 3 Petőfi Square; 184-848) and Cooptourist (4 Bartók Street; 251-667). Rates for doubles, about $2 to $13. INFORMATION The Ibusz Travel Agency has an office in Rockefeller Center (Suite 2455, 630 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10111; 212-582-7412), where information and travel folders can be obtained and reservations made for rooms and events. In Budapest, visitors can get information at Tourinform in the center of Pest (2 SütÖ Street; 179-800). The office is open from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. daily. LINCOLN PARK, Mich. I enjoyed reaqing your bilingual article "Weicker szenátor Wilton Bekedija" and the World Peace Prayer. In peace and equality Louise Heck-Rabi READERS FORPfl vvnni w Budapest
