Programme: works by Aldo FINZI – Erich Wolfgang KORNGOLD – Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH – Giacomo PUCCINI – Albin FRIES
Soloists: Ágnes Molnár, Brigitta Kele, Csilla Boros, Szabolcs Brickner
Conducted by: Gergely Kesselyák
Contributing: Orchestra and Choir of the Hungarian State Opera House
The opening concert of Bartók Plusz 2019 offers an audacious, unconventional selection of works by romantic, twentieth-century and contemporary composers. The first composer, Aldo Finzi had a tragic fate and died at a young age. His opera, La serenata al vento (Serenade to the Wind) won the opera competition of La Scala in Milan but the introduction of laws 
Szabolcs Brickner and Ágnes Molnárdiscriminating Jews prevented the production of the opera.
Korngold was the father of film music composition who wrote six wonderful operas in addition to his film music. The festival now offers a sampling of his melodrama “Das Wunder der Heliane” (The Miracle of Heliane).
Shostakovich, perhaps the world’s most profound composer with the most tragic voice/music figures in the programme with the orchestral suite made out of his operetta Moscow, Cheryomushki.
Austrian composer Albin Fries won the Opera Composition Competition by Bartók Plus in 2018. The opening gala will present a wonderful aria from this work before the opera’s world premiere during the festival
