Szatmári Gizella: Walks in the Castle District - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)

night, twenty-six girls dressed up as shepherdesses recited the “Verses of Joy” composed by professor of aesthetics Lajos Schedius.

It was also here that Hungary’s foremost travelling company played between 1833 and 1837. Having arrived from Kassa, the actors later became founding members of the National Theatre. Mrs. Kántor, Márton Lend- vay, Mrs. Lendvay neé Anikó Hivatal, Gábor Egressy, Károly Megyeri and Zsigmond Szentpéteri all trod the boards of the theatre. The troupe introduced itself to the audience in the “Martial play” Bocskay István avagy az egyenes lelkű hazafi (István Bocskay, or the Virtuous Patriot). In the autumn of the same year, Miss Róza La- borfalvy, later the wife of Hungary’s greatest Romantic novelist Mór Jókai, also appeared on the stage here. One of the greatest classics of Hungarian drama, Bánk bán by József Katona, had its premiere in this theatre on 27 February 1835.

Between 1837 and 1870, the Castle Theatre was used by German actors once again. From 1871, the company of the Hungarian National Theatre—a term whose use had become fully legitimate by the time—could entertain its audience, mainly from Buda, three nights a week.

The former Carmelite monastery functioned as a hospital in 1849. General Hentzi, commander of the Hapsburg forces occupying the Castle, and Colonel Allnoch, the Austrian officer who contrived to blow up the Chain Bridge to prevent the Hungarian army reaching the Castle, are said to have died here.

The theatre itself continued to function until 1924, reappearing as the studio of the National Theatre in 1978, following various reconstruction jobs carried out on the building. (There are plaques to the memory of László Kelemen’s company and Beethoven on the exterior wall. The former bears only an inscription at present as the original, by Sándor Boldogfai Farkas, which was installed in 1940 and in fact featured a relief, was taken off. József Kampf]’s plaque dedicated to Beethoven was unveiled next to the entrance on the 200th anniversary of the composer’s guest-appearance here.)

Since 2001 János Meszlényi Molnár’s ornamental well Girl with Fish has stood on the former battery affording a peerless view of Margaret Island, the Parliament and the Pest side of the city.

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