Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei (Budapest, 2008)
ANNUAL REPORT • A 2008. ÉV - ÁRPÁD MIKLÓS NAGY: Centenary of the Collection of Classical Antiquities 1908-2008
20 CHORUS COMPETITION curator Despina Ignatiadou, and the documentation of the exhibition by Marianna Dági, our curator, see www.mfab.hu/Classics, s.v. Navigatio, Highlighted Works of Art, Archive). The academic and museological events were paralleled by a series of cultural programs, designed to emphasise and strengthen the links between ancient tradition and contemporary culture in the media of theatre, music, and literature. On November 18, 2009, the company of the National Theatre began the centenary program with a celebration of Euripides' Orestes at the Museum. A new translation was prepared for the event. Before the play, the team of translators, György Karsai, classicist, and János Térey poet, introduced the play, with excerpts performed by the director Robert Alföldi and the actors. The author himself w r as in attendance at the play's official premiere at the National Theatre on November 21 (also the first night of Róbert Alföldi's term as Director of the Theatre): the Euripides portrait in the Collection of Classical Mitiquities was displayed in the theatre for the night. The closing event of the centenary ("Night of Orpheus") was held on November 27th, at several venues in the Museum. The Baroque Hall gave home to a "Gesamtkunstwerk" of three interwoven movements. The first movement was the final of a competition for young composers announced jointly by the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music and the Museum of Fine Arts (Chorus competition). Participants had to compose chamber music for voice and wind instruments which included the surviving extract of a chorus from Euripides' Orestes; the works were judged by András Kárpáti, an expert on ancient music, and two composers, László Melis and László Tihanyi. The six applicants were: Gergely Barta, Balázs Horváth (2nd prize), Bálint Elorváth, Emese Maróti, László Nyitrai (3rd prize) and Péter Tornyai (1st prize). Between the musical performances essays on antiquity, ancient art and art works were read (Connections including Judit Horváth and Árpád Miklós Nagy, Bellerophón; Géza Komoróczy, A fragmentary statuette from southern Mesopotamia (Uruk); Sándor Radnóti, Pygnuilionism; Zsigmond Ritoók, The Song of Seikilos; György Tatár, "... and he shall dwell in the tents ofShem ". An essay by
