Opera
 

Hello everyone,

My friend and I will be travelling to Budapest & Prague soon. We'd like to catch the Opera. We were wondering if we could get any help with figuring out which city has the better one? The Fairy Queen is the one we can catch in Budapest, and Elektra is the one in Prague. The ticket prices, and the kind of seats available for both are around the same and we haven't really seen the Opera before so we can't really tell which one might be better just from the synopsis.

Also, we were wondering what the dress code would be like?

It would be great if we could get a little help with this.

Thanks!

Frankly, neither opera is what I'd recommend for a first timer. Fairy Queen is a Baroque opera, maybe still the better choice for you. Elektra is really for fans of Richard Strauss's music.

The opera house in both cities are gorgeous. In Budapest make sure to get tickets for a box.

http://www.bohemiaticket.cz/theatres...vovske-divadlo
there are a few places in Prague that do Opera,Don Giovani is often performed at the Estates,the theatre it was premiered in by Mozart himself,this was the theatre that was also used for many of the interior shots of the Film Amadeus.
the link I have given you will allow you to see what is on in the various places in Prague.

Do you care about the presence or absence of surtitles in your native language?

Dress code? I have not attended any performances in either of those houses but if the clientele are at all similar to locations such as the Liceu in Barcelona, Munich, Venice, Zurich, LaScala, Berlin, Covent Garden, and even the Staats in Vienna, I suspect you will end up seeing a wide variety of dress, depending (sometimes) on the age and it will include jeans to coats and ties for men and everything up to long gowns for the women.

I suspect that if you have to ask about "Elektra" and "The Fairy Queen" then you won't like them. As Ingo said, and I agree, they are not really recommended for a first time opera experience. The Fairy Queen is not really an opera, but a restaging of Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" with incidental music and a "masque" at the end of each act with singing and dancing. With so much spoken dialogue, you might want to find out if it will be done in English or Hungarian.

Why don't you check out both operas on Youtube and see if they are to your taste.

Are there any other choices in Budapest and Prague while you are visiting? Certainly I would recommend "Don Giovanni" if it is playing.

Are you only there one night? They aren't showing Don Giovanni in Prague, but they are showing Marriage of FIgaro on 6/17, as well as Norma in a different theatre. Elektra is only 6/18.

I wouldn't go to Elektra as I dislike Strauss but and wouldn't recommend that for someone who has never been to opera, probalby not what you expect. That opera is modern and the music is not necessarily going to be easy to listen to. The good thing about it is that it is relatively short for an opera (one act), but still will be close to 2 hours.

However, the Fairy Queen isn't traditional opera, more incidental music and that can be very long as it's 5 acts, unless they cut some. The music alone is 2 hrs. Purcell can put some to sleep, I suspect that long a production for something that isn't traditional opera may also not be what you had in mind.

SO given those caveats, I'd probably go with Elektra of those two, you never know, you might find it exciting, but it's not what you are probably thinking of as traditional Italian opera.

I've been to the theatre in Prague, you dress like you would in any major city to go to such an event, the theatre or a major classical concert hall. JUst look nice and dress up a bit, but you don't have to worry about it, really. You don't need formal wear, I just wouldn't dress in sneaks and torn jeans or raggedy Tshirts.

Budapest's state opera house is vast, second only to the Parliament buildings and used a lot more over the decades. I sat through Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, sung in German with Hungarian surtitles (subtitles). But I knew the plot, basically American Idol with more arguing about the rules. The triangle player spent a maximum of five minutes in the pit. The musicians are government employees, so, because of the opera's length, were entitled to a one-hour intermission to eat dinner. A grand experience in all meanings of the world.
But I disliked my box seat, since spectators closer to the stage leaned over the railing and partly obscured the view.
Here is the website: http://www.opera.hu/v/purcell-the-fairy-queen/
It says the opera, based on a Midsummer Night's Dream, is sung in English with both English and Hungarian surtitles. The graphics suggest the production is set in 1930s Hollywood, or somewhere like that. Ordering a ticket on-line was a breeze, and cheap, at least five years ago.

We've been to both opera houses [and saw Madame Butterfly in Prague, and La Boheme in Budapest] and they are really pretty similar - lots of gold and decorated plaster - with tiers of boxes arranged round the stalls in the traditional way. You do not want a seat at the back of a box - it needs to be the front row or nothing. In fact tour stalls seats in both theatres were fine.

The buildings are very beautiful, and well worth visiting for their looks alone.

Some people had tried very hard and were wearing furs and the family jewels it as winter]; others were wearing jackets with jeans.

I can't help you with which one to choose - that's up to you.

Better scratch ELEKTRA in Prague off your list. The reviews (example here: https://bachtrack.com/de_DE/review-e...ague-june-2016) are not encouraging.

Thanks a lot for your input guys. Looks like we'll be going with The Fairy Queen. :)

Ingo--not encouraging? It sounds as if the production is an utter shambles. I think that I would rather have hot needles put in my eyes than sit through two hours of that Elektra.

The Hungarian State Opera production of The Fairy Queen looks interesting. It will be done in English with English and Hungarian surtitles. It's in modern dress (1930/40s) which will be quite a contrast to Purcell's baroque music, so I don't know how that will turn out. Perhaps something like the Met's Las Vegas setting for Rigoletto, which was fine. However, the very worst opera production I have ever seen was by the English National Opera--Don Giovanni (my favourite) done in late 20th grunge style. Only the music saved it, and not entirely, as the director had cut some of the best arias. I only regret that I hadn't read the scathing reviews before I went.

Here's the trailer for The Fairy Queen. Not your traditional production at all, and maybe it might be attractive to an opera first-timer!

https://youtu.be/DyblW2X3S1g

Thank you laverendrye! The trailer definitely looks promising. I quite enjoy theatre. It's just that the opera is not exactly very popular in my country, so I haven't had the opportunity to see a production of that form. Your response was exactly the push I needed to go ahead with my plans. :)

Well, I suppose this may be "better" than the "Onegin" performance in Munich in which fellatio was being performed upstage in one scene but to each their very own.

Do let us know what you thought of the performance, Anusri.