10 Best Performing Arts Venues in Hungary

World-renowned conductor Iván Fischer, who is still music director, formed the group with famed Hungarian conductor Zoltán Kocsis in 1983. The orchestra has won international accolades and is hands-down your best bet for classical music in Budapest. International soloists and conductors are often invited to perform with the orchestra. Its home base was previously the Liszt Ferenc Music Academy, but since 2005 the orchestra has also performed regularly at the new Béla Bartók National Concert Hall in the Művészetek Palotája (Palace of the Arts), and they have monthly Sunday Chamber Music concerts in their rehearsal hall on this side of the river, in Buda. Tickets can be purchased online or at several locations around Budapest, including Ticket Express and the Liszt Ferenc Academy.

For a unique entertainment experience, it's hard to beat this cave theater, carved out of a limestone quarry 8 km (5 miles) northeast of Sopron. The 760-seat theater has amazing natural acoustics, which make for memorable classical music performances, pop and rock concerts, and musical theater productions. Arrive an hour early to enjoy the walking trail around the quarry, with lovely lookout points over the southern shore of Lake Neusiedl and a fun paleontological exhibition.

A proper ruin bar experience, Gólya is a bar and community center that operates in an industrial building out near the factories of Budapest's Chinatown. Set across three levels, the ground floor is reserved for its live events—everything from poetry readings and jazz to hardcore hip-hop and drum and bass—while the upper level and its impressive open-air roof see a regular assortment of leftist locals and expats debating politics and pop culture. The beer list is impressive given the space, and you'll also find decent wines and mixed drinks on the menu, all affordably priced. Other unique events include film clubs, lectures, art exhibitions, and fundraisers, keeping this place buzzing most nights.

This magnificent art nouveau music academy presides over the cafés and gardens of Liszt Ferenc tér. Along with the Vigadó, it's one of the city's main concert halls, hosting orchestra and chamber music concerts in its splendid main hall. On summer days the sound of daytime rehearsals from inside adds to the sweetness in the air along the pedestrian oasis of café society, just off buzzing Andrássy út.

The academy itself has two auditoriums: a green-and-gold 1,200-seat main hall and a smaller hall for chamber music and solo recitals. Farther along the square is a dramatic statue of Liszt Ferenc (Franz Liszt) himself, hair blown back from his brow, seemingly in a flight of inspiration. Pianist Ernő (Ernst) Dohnányi and composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály were teachers here.

You can purchase tickets to all performances and classical music concerts held at the academy through the ticket office. It's sometimes even possible to grab a standing-room ticket just before a performance.

Miklós Ybl's crowning achievement, built between 1875 and 1884, is the glittering neo-Renaissance opera house. It's Budapest's main venue for opera and classical ballet, and it also presents an international repertoire of classical and modern works as well as such Hungarian favorites as Kodály's Háry János. Badly damaged during the siege of 1944–45, it was restored for its 1984 centenary.

Two buxom marble sphinxes guard the driveway; the main entrance is flanked by Alajos Strobl's "romantic-realist" limestone statues of Liszt and of another 19th-century Hungarian composer, Ferenc Erkel, the father of Hungarian opera (his patriotic opera Bánk bán is still performed for national celebrations).

Inside, the spectacle begins even before the performance does. You glide up grand staircases and through wood-paneled corridors and gilt lime-green salons into a glittering jewel box of an auditorium. Its four tiers of boxes are held up by helmeted sphinxes beneath a frescoed ceiling by Károly Lotz. Lower down there are frescoes everywhere, with intertwined motifs of Apollo and Dionysus. In its early years the Budapest Opera was conducted by Gustav Mahler (1888–91), and after World War II by Otto Klemperer (1947–50).

You can't view the interior on your own, but 45-minute tours in English are usually conducted daily; buy tickets in the Opera Sales Sentre (Opera Értékesítési Centrum) near the Hajós utca entrance. (Large groups should call in advance.)

Of course, the best way to experience the Opera House is to see a ballet or opera. The main season runs from September to mid-June, and includes about 50 major productions, including about five new opera premieres a year. Tickets, which are available online as well as at the box office, are relatively affordable and easy acquire.

Except during the two-week international opera and ballet festival in mid-August, the Opera House is closed in summer. That said, the National Opera Company sometimes performs at various outdoor stages and festivals during the off-season, and can be heard almost nightly on several local classical radio stations.

Every summer, Matild Café hosts a variety of spectacular cabaret evenings. Guests enjoy a superb three-course meal with wine while being entertained by cabaret performances, featuring a heady mix of music, dance, and even acrobatics. Each themed show offers something different—and something unlike anything else in the Inner Town—and lasts for around two to three hours. Check the website for upcoming shows and to book your tickets in advance. Private bookings are possible year-round.

In southern Pest, at the foot of Rákóczi (aka Lágymányosi) Bridge, right beside the similarly grand National Theater, this monumental venue known as Műpa is where the capital's entertainment fans feast on a wide array of musical, theatrical, and dance performances. On the outside the Palace of Arts does indeed look palatial, in a very modern sense. The inside, as spacious and as sparkling as it is, contains plenty of intimate, well-cushioned little nooks on all floors on both sides of its Béla Bartók National Concert Hall—which occupies its center and has world-class acoustics—where you can take a seat and ponder life and/or art.

Round and colonnaded in front and square in back, Hungary's massive, preeminent national theatrical venue is a spectacular blend of modern and classical, flanked by an even grander neighbor, the Palace of the Arts (Müpa). There are nightly performances on at least one of two stages inside the theater.

The spacious square out front and to the side is something to behold—though, admittedly, different folks behold it differently. The large reflecting pool contains a toppled-over, life-size ancient theater facade and three eternal flames. The bow of a ship, which you can walk on, overlooks the pool. Elsewhere scattered about the square—some on benches, others standing—are eight metal statues of late, great Hungarian thespians of the 20th century, each performing a legendary role.

Nearby the theater is a compellingly round structure that's aptly nicknamed the Tower of Babel and that houses a small exhibit gallery. In no time you can walk up the path that winds around its outer perimeter to the top for a modest view of the Buda hills and of the surrounding new architecture on the Pest side. Kids love to get lost in the fascinating little labyrinth of hedges at the foot of the tower. Explore the grounds or come for a show. English subtitles are available for some performances, but it is always best to double-check.

Toldi is arguably Budapest's most unique arthouse cinema, with something for everyone. Open since 1932, it screens major releases and indie picks, often in their original language with Hungarian subtitles. It's also home to major international film festivals and regular revival showcases. The interiors are suitably moody, like something out of a David Lynch movie, with a hip lobby bar that's a hub for local activists and artists. And 'round midnight, when the projectors switch off, its underground space transforms into one of the city's coolest clubs, alternating between booming electronic music and pop-friendly dance nights until the wee hours.

A stunning Art Nouveau theater built in the 1890s and screening films since 1917, this grand building is just as beautiful inside as it is out. Frequent festivals feature world cinema and they regularly screen the latest English-language releases—but keep in mind, the actual audio-visual equipment doesn't compare to major multiplexes. Nevertheless, this might be the most aesthetically impressive movie theater you will ever visit, especially if you're seated on the balcony level. Come early and have a coffee and cake at the romantic café upstairs.