Budapest Summer Festival: Festival of Cultures on Margaret Island

Budapest Summer Festival comes to you with unique programmes and performances in a wide range of genres, featuring world famous artists and extraordinary ensembles. The Festival starts on June 9th with the concert of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra starring violin virtuoso, Hilary Hahn. Special guests in the upcoming months include: pop-soul diva, Y’Akoto, America’s favourite jazz band, The Hot Sardines, the colorful African Soweto Gospel Choir, Porgy and Bess opera-concert show, operas and galas with star singers, Béjart Ballet Lausanne and many more spectacular shows on the Margaret Island Open-Air Stage.

Budapest is most famous for its unmatched panorama, however the Hungarian capital has been more and more referred to as a city of surprises. The reason is that apart from its architectural and natural heritage, Budapest offers exciting, wide ranging programs for its guests throughout the whole year.

The Budapest Summer Festival – as the most remarkable art festival of the country – offers more than 100 culture programmes during the summer season. The two main venues are: the Margaret Island and the Városmajor Open-Air Theatres. The festival also provide complex, unique travel deals and recreation services including culture and entertainment related programs in the heart of Budapest, a city listed in the top 10 tourist destinations in the world.

Our programs are for individual and group travellers, for all age groups and families, and are organized at Hungary’s largest open-air theatre on Margaret Island, in a beautiful natural park area, near the 106 years old historic Water Tower monument.

The Margaret Island Open-Air Theatre is probably one of the most beautiful stages in Central Europe. It was built in 1938 and has been recently renovated and upgraded with the latest stage technology. It has 2700 seats and its own port for river boats, and it hosts one of the city’s largest all-art festival during summer months. The Budapest Summer Festival is an unmissable cultural and touristic attraction in Budapest, offering unique and spectacular performances in a large variety of genres: grand operas, concert shows, ballet and musical productions, jazz, wordmusic, classical music and crossover concerts, revue-circus. The festival has over 90.000 visitors per season, made up of returning audiance and new ones, from inland and abroad too.

Our goal is to invite and present the best Hungarian artists as well as the best international stars and world famous performers, companies and groups to the audiance. In the last ten years we have hosted international superstars like: Buena Vista Social Club, Chico & The Gypsies, Shakespeare’s Globe, Moscow Classical Balett, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, Carmen Souza, Gianni Morandi, Loreena McKennit, Gocco, Moiseyev Ballet, Los Vivancos, Nic Raine, Zoltán Kovács, Gergely Madaras, Domonkos Héja & Carlo Montanaro conductors, Catherine Gallagher, Edvin Marton, Giora Feidman, Rhoda Scott, Boban Markovic, Felix Lajko, Alexander Rybak, Al Bano, Anouska Shankar, Pet Metheny Group, Jacques Loussier, Stacey Kent, Stanley Jordan, Allegre Correa, Ron Carter, Ferenc Snétberger, Elodie Frege, Yuja Wang, opera singers: Rinat Shaham, Thiago Arancam, Andrea Care, Béatrice UriaMonzon, Giancarlo Monsalve, Erika Miklósa, Andrea Rost, Mihály Kálmándy, Nuttaporn Thammathi, Giuseppe Filianoti, Martin Mühle, James Valenti, Marc Heller and much more.

Beside the Margaret Island Open-Air Stage the Városmajor Open-Air Theatre is the other significant scene of the Budapest Summer Festival. It is one of the few theaters in Buda and the only open-air theater built in this part of the city. It was originally an open-air cinema before being turned into an outdoor stage. The 800 seated and pleasant atmosphered theater is 5 minutes walk from the Széll Kálmán square in the middle of Buda’s most popular and lovely park called Városmajor. The Stage only performs in Summer – in June, July and August – and offers more than 70 programs in varied repertoire for all generations. The audiance can enjoy here mainly comedies, dramas, musicals, concerts and performances for children in a green, open-air space. Beside the mostly Hungarian-language performances, dance shows are given in the program. The Városmajor Open-air Stage is particularly strong in concerts, offering jazz, world music and classical music in the repertoire.

The organizer Open-Air Theatre Non-profit Ltd. offers attractions every season: its own presentations, brand new, specially designed for the specific site productions with a lead up promotional campaign throughout the city. Our productions and co-productions are performed at indoor theatres (during the theatre season from September to May, which are also operated and maintained by institutions with national and municipal government support) and added to our partners’ permanent repertoires. Our theatre guarantees and provides a secure background (financial, promotional and professional) for the creation of these productions and their continued performances.

The season lasts every Summer from the middle of June to 31 August.

Visit Budapest Summer Festival’s website: eng.szabadter.hu

Source: Budapest Summer Festival