From
the Midwest to
Budapest
Opera house showcases history
Budapest owes its most famous landmarks to its legacy as a capital of its Hapsburg rulers. The family ruled Hungary beginning in the early 18th century, and Budapest eventually became the secondary seat of The Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867.
Vienna was the main capital, but the members and court of the Hapsburg dynasty did much in the late 19th century to embellish and elevate Budapest into a fitting emblem of its Empire. In 1875, work began on the Hungarian State Opera House.
Moving up Andrasy Street from the Liberty Bridge, toward Heroes’ Square, you will come upon an arched and colonnaded neo-Renaissance façade featuring statues of the world’s great composers encircling its high cornice. This is the Budapest State Opera House, and often it is hung with banners advertising some exciting musical extravaganza.
Story by Yorgo Douramacos
Even if you check the dates and no performance fits your schedule, it’s still worth your while to step into the huge echoing lobby and follow the signs, back past display cases holding expensive and ornate hand painted souvenirs, and purchase a ticket for the twice-daily tours at 3 and 4 p.m.
The tours are offered in English, French, Italian, Spanish and German and cost 2900 HUF (approximately $13). It costs a little more to be allowed to take pictures. If you don’t mind spending closer to $20, you can also pay a little more for a small performance in one of the high-ceilinged side chambers where a member of the company emerges to serenade the tour group.
The State Opera House is the definition of high-imperial luxury. It was designed by Miklos Ybl, who also designed the famous St. Stephen’s Basilica in Budapest. Inside the opera house, its intricately designed box seats are painted with gold. The auditorium can seat up to 1,200 patrons.
On the tour, you learn much of the history of Hungarian high culture. For instance, Gustave Mahler was the company’s director from 1887 to 1901.
The highlight of the State Opera House visit, though, is just being allowed to bask in the main auditorium space. Its enormous chandelier illuminating the complex neoclassical fresco by Karloy Lotz details the Greek myth of the nine muses.
The acoustics in The Budapest State Opera House were famous from its first performance. The design features numerous innovative touches that in its day made it state of the art.
For instance, beneath every seat on the main floor are what appear to be normal air circulation vents, grated circular chambers of the sort we’ve all seen on ceilings all our lives.
The explanation for the vents is two fold. First, it allowed air circulation with the option of diverting the airflow through a subterranean ice chamber to cool the room on hot days. Second, each hole also acts as a resonance chamber, like the hole in a guitar, heightening both the auditory experience of the patron in each seat but also that of the room overall.
The tour guides tell a story of its first performance when Emperor Franz Joseph who had partially financed the construction sat in the central box, with its three-storey circle. He commanded view of the entire stage and auditorium.
He had approved the building of the Hungarian State Opera House, on the single condition that it could not be built bigger than his prized and preferred opera house in his main capital of Vienna. He is said to have sat unmoved through the opening performance and festivities of the Hungarian State Opera House and then never returned for a second visit. His queen, Elizabeth, attended regularly though and even had a private reserved box to the side of the stage where she could be clearly seen and admired by everyone in the auditorium. But the emperor never returned.
The explanation preferred by the Hungarian State Opera House is that though smaller, the Budapest Opera House was noticeably more beautiful than Franz Joseph’s beloved Viennese concert hall. This is speculative, of course, but it seems to suit the evidence.
