An evening of outstanding musical masterpieces performed by famous musicians who have frequently played together at international chamber music festivals.

A musical legend in three acts. The plot is set in the Renaissance and is about the momentous challenge of rescuing music. It may be just another legend but it is a beautiful one. This unusual Pfitzner opera calling for exceptional theatrical sensitivity is to be staged by Balázs Kovalik.

What else is needed for an operetta but wonderful melodies, an exciting story and lots of love? And we are certain to get all these when a work by Franz Lehár is staged. This is especially so in the case of the Merry Widow with its world famous melody in the frame of a bitter-sweet love story. After many years Hanna Glavari, a wealthy widow, once again meets Danilo Danilovits, the love of her youth. They have both changed over the years: the woman has become suspicious and hard-hearted, the man cynical and dissolute. Past errors and present grievances prevent the two people who were made for each other from finding the way to each other easily. Theirs is the story of a love born and revived with great difficulty, set against the background of a small South-East European state where the politicians are manoeuvring to cope with an economic crisis, for their own survival and that of their country.

The music and story of The Merry Widow are imbued with passion, an unadmitted, suppressed and erupting passion. Perhaps that is why it always has such a powerful impact on both audiences and performers. It was first performed, with success, in Vienna in 1905 and in Budapest in 1906, launching it on its triumphant way. It is played on opera and operetta stages around the globe and it is said that there is not an evening when it is not performed somewhere in the world …

Now, after an absence of a few years, The Merry Widow is returning to Budapest rejuvenated in a new production, with new performers.

José Limón was one of the most influential artists of 20th century American modern dance whose name is preserved in the technique he developed, still widely used throughout the world, and in the still operating company he founded more than sixty years ago. Limón died in 1972 but the José Limón Dance Company, star guest at the 2008 Budapest Spring Festival, continues to preserve and cultivate his masterpieces and legacy.
The dancer-choreographer who moved as a child from Mexico to the United States became immortal as a dancer of magnetic power and an innovative choreographer. His creations are marked by passion, complex lighting, deep morality and social responsibility. His highly polished compositions reflect his image of religion and society and his sensitivity. His Missa Brevis (1958) composed to Kodály’s music pays tribute to the freedom fighters of Eastern Europe; The Unsung (1970) salutes the memory of the American native peoples. The world famous company that last visited Budapest in 1998 is once again bringing masterpieces of one of the apostles of modern dance; the three different programmes also include one work each by Limón’s outstanding fellow artists, Jirí Kylian and Susanne Linke.