Premiere Eötvös opera Valuska nominated for international award

Hungarian two-time Kossuth Prize-winning composer Peter Eötvös’s last opera, Valuska, premiered in December 2023, is among the nominees for the International Opera Awards for the greatest opera performances of the past season.

The Hungarian State Opera’s production of Valuska competes with prestigious opera houses such as Opera Philadelphia, the Dallas Opera House, the Montreal Opera, and the Royal Opera House in Madrid, the opera house said in a statement on Monday. The house noted that it had commissioned Eotvos to compose what would be his only opera in Hungarian.

Eötvös, who died this year at 80, based the libretto for his 13th and last opera on the 1989 novel The Melancholy of Resistance by International Man Booker Prize-winner Laszlo Krasznahorkai. He wrote the libretto together with his wife and creative collaborator, Mari Mezei, and dramaturg Kinga Keszthelyi.

The production was streamed on OperaVision for six months from January this year, and it is expected to make a return to the Opera House’s repertoire in the 2025/26 season.

The International Opera Awards will be held on Oct 2, organised by the Bavarian State Opera, at the Prinzregententheater in Munich.

read also:

• Distinguished composer Péter Eötvös dies at the age of 80
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