Puccini, born 150 years ago, revised this opera three times, with the result that it exists in four versions. It has never previously been staged in Hungary. The final version we will hear will certainly include the famous funeral march that Toscanini conducted at the composer’s funeral.
The opera is set in the early years of the 14th century. Two woman love Edgar, the heroic knight: one (Fidelia) with a gentle love, the other (Tigrana) with wild passion. The latter becomes so inconvenient that Edgar stages his own funeral (hence the funeral march!), watching it in disguise as a monk. But he cannot win the gentle love, Tigrana perfidiously stabs Fidelia.

I believe that all the values, knowledge and brilliance that the Hunyadis gave to Hungarian and universal culture can be presented to today’s music-loving public most attractively by reviving the folklore treasures that lie hidden in the depths of archives, on the yellowing pages of collections, or that live on in the voices of unknown folksingers from the Balkans to Poland. The figures of the Hunyadis lived for centuries in the folklore of the Bulgarian, Romanian and Southern Slav peoples as well as in Hungarian folktales and songs. To the south the deeds of John, the Defeater of the Turks, are sung in the splendid language of old chronicle songs where he is called Janko Sibinjanin, Jankula, Ugrin Janko, or Voivode Janko, while to the north many tales, royal songs and legends preserve the memory of King Matthias. Many surviving verse chronicles as well as works by the greatest Hungarian poets – from János Arany to Gyula Juhász– celebrate this glorious period in Hungarian history. Everywhere folk surrealism has woven the marching of armies, the wheeling of falcons, the pealing of bells, the strumming of lutes, the soaring of ravens, the jewel of the crown, around the image of the Hunyadis who have become icons. John, Ladislas, Matthias and Elisabeth Szilágyi became mythical heroes in the memory of many peoples. Fortunately, our eloquent poets have translated many of the ballads and heroic songs about them, but after lengthy research we have found versions performed and noted down in the original languages, together with their melodies.

Matthias was crowned in 1458. It is easy to imagine the state of mind in which he began to work for the advancement of his country after witnessing the cruel beheading of his elder brother. He must have felt anger, bitterness, thoughts of revenge, as well as the titanic intention of youth to make a new start. While he waged constant war with the Turks under his banner with the raven, he brought to Hungary humanism and Renaissance culture, the noblest achievements of western civilization. As a strong ruler and military commander, he organised the Black Army, but at the same time he wrote and read not only in the Hungarian of his age but also in Latin, he spoke Croatian, Serb, Polish and Czech and created the Corvina, Europe’s greatest library.

On the 550th anniversary of his coronation we would like to pay tribute to his fame and name with a two-part programme: Kings, Saints, Knights. We are inviting the best foreign folksingers and folk musicians to perform the contemporary world music settings, as well as the leading Hungarian representatives of early music so that we can show as authentically as possible the knowledge of the Hunyadis that we – the peoples living along the Danube – have preserved for centuries.