Budapest Spring Festival to offer over 150 programmes

The Budapest Spring Festival (BSF) will feature more than 150 cultural programmes at 40 venues between March 30 and April 22, the organisers said on Thursday.

The festival’s main focus will be the oeuvre of 19th century composer-pianist Franz Liszt, whose oratorio The Legend of St Elisabeth will be the opening event on Good Friday in the Palace of Arts, Csaba Káel, the chief of BSF’s operative body told a press conference.

Other programmes marking Easter will include Telemann’s oratorio The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus performed by the Orfeo Orchestra and the Purcell Choir in the Liszt Academy on April 1.

The PONT Festival in Várkert Bazár will present Easter-related customs and UNESCO-listed religious folk traditions from Hungary and the Mediterranean region.

Piano recitals by international stars such as Martha Argerich, Daniil Trifonov, Yefim Bronfman, Rudolf Buchbinder and Yuja Wang will be the highlights of this year’s festival, said Kael.

Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birth anniversary will be marked with a performance of his opera Quiet Place by Austrian opera company Neue Oper Wien conducted by Walter Kobe.

Other programmes include an open-air spring fair, to be held for the first time, as well as an Ukrainian contemporary art exhibition and the Hungarian Press Photo exhibition.

The festival will close with a parade along central Andrassy Avenue.

Source: MTI