Boross Martin: Harminchatok

There are evenings when our Opera House cannot perform because rehearsals are ongoing on stage until the evening. There are audience members who can only afford to hear their favourite pieces with a discount. And there are works that, although very popular, cannot be staged every season due to the congestion of productions.

“I've captured a terrific storm of elements and of hearts which gradually calms to Brünnhilde's magic sleep,” Wagner on the score of Die Walküre, in a letter to Ferenc Liszt. Following on the heels of the introductory Das Rheingold, this opera about the tragic love between two of Wotan's children constitutes the start of the more tightly drawn dramatic trilogy. Once again, the laws of the gods clash: can paternal love save a lad who has violated the sanctity of marriage?

While the Fountain of Tears bubbles before him, Giray, khan of the Tatars, is lost in brooding. Just as the flow from the marble fount cannot be exhausted, his own sorrow will never diminish, either. The story of the Fountain of Bakhchisarai is set in motion by a romance recounting the reason for the khan's gloom.