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“Loved to the gallows” could be an alternative title of Umberto Giordano’s opera, which serves up a grand historical tableau, a love that even defies death, and, last but not least, three brilliant leading roles.

In Hungarian, without subtitles.

The discussions before and after the screening will be conducted in Hungarian.

Cecilia Bartoli is returning to Müpa Budapest! Any chance to host the world-famous Italian coloratura soprano/mezzo-soprano is a cause for celebration: her appearances are invariably made extraordinary by her cascading displays of scintillating technical feats and the emotional and passionate intensity of her performances.

His political involvement and premature death have obscured the fact that Géza Szőcs was one of Hungary’s most outstanding and exciting contemporary poets.

Two trumpets at the same time? Now that’s a party! Gábor Boldoczki and Sergei Nakariakov arrive in mid-December bearing an ideally timed sonic gift in advance of the lights of the upcoming Christmas holiday.

Just like buildings, pieces of music are constructed from small component parts. From sounds, and from tones, obeying the universal laws of music – and sometimes breaking them. But how are the building blocks of music assembled? In what way do individual instruments and solo parts support and complement each other?

This multi-art production draws on the song, dance and literary traditions of Mezőség (Câmpia Transilvaniei), a region in Transylvania with a very exciting and colourful culture. Musically, the show is centred around movements from Mikrokosmos, Béla Bartók’s piano cycle, as well as the melodies from Mezőség that inspired him.

A december végi időpont ellenére forró estére számíthatnak, akik ellátogatnak a Söndörgő harmincéves jubileumi koncertjére.

Haydn’s monumental oratorio, The Creation, captivates not only by laying the Enlightenment’s harmonious philosophy bare before us, but also by presenting us with a whole new world.

Vincenzo Bellini’s final opera is a veritable apotheosis of bel canto that should only be presented to an audience with performers displaying impeccable technique and stylistic sensibilities.

Vincenzo Bellini’s final opera is a veritable apotheosis of bel canto that should only be presented to an audience with performers displaying impeccable technique and stylistic sensibilities.

First came the microgroove, then the LP, originally in the form of what we now call the vinyl album. Usually 12 inches in diameter and playing at a speed of 33 1/3 rotations per minute, it could accommodate up to 50 minutes of music, making it a respectable medium for even a complete rock opera.

“Mihály Csokonai Vitéz’s most famous portrait shows a man in a Hungarian fur-lined mantle gazing at us with large, open eyes. Whoever etched this image into copper never set eyes on the poet, " writes László Bertók.

In 2000, Lars von Trier broke free from the Dogme 95 movement he had helped create, and immediately won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

When we think about words being used to create art, that can mean two things: literature and song lyrics.

Vladimir Kostadinović has come a long way since being introduced to the Hungarian audience as a young talent at the 2013 Jazz Showcase.

In 2026, Müpa Budapest will be spotlighting Hungarian jazz talent through the Jazz Showcase for the nineteenth year running. Alongside established performers, countless young artists have been introduced in recent years to dazzle the jury and captivate audiences. Now, for this special occasion, they return as a one-of-a-kind big band, like members of a large family.

For Hungarian audiences, Okvsho is more than just one of the most promising and exciting bands on the vibrant European jazz scene.

Katalin Ladik, who has roots in Vojvodina, is one of the most exciting figures in Hungarian contemporary literature. Her long career, filled with surprises, bright ideas and unexpected turns, draws on avant-garde traditions, while incorporating reinterpreted elements of more traditional forms of expression into an original poetic language that places them in a new context.

In 2024, Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra returned to perform at Müpa Budapest. The night was one big party. Was it what we would call folk punk? Balkan rollicking? Categories are meaningless. Kusturica is very consistent in his use of music in his films. (Sometimes the songs even become hits.)

Nyíregyházi Cantemus Vegyeskar (karigazgató: Szabó Soma)
Budafoki Dohnányi Zenekar
Vezényel: Hollerung Gábor

Silver Bear-winning filmmaker Dénes Nagy spent four years following György Kurtág’s everyday life with his camera. The resulting documentary, produced between 2021 and 2025, far exceeds the conventional boundaries of the genre.

A kortárs zene élő legendáját, a százéves Kurtág Györgyöt köszönti az évad művésze, az izlandi zongoraművész, Víkingur Ólafsson, akinek Goldberg-variációk-felvétele 2025-ben elnyerte a Grammy-díjat, és aki szoros munkakapcsolatban áll a magyar komponistával.

What music accompanied the life of the Swedish royal court during the reign of Charles XI in the 17th century? Ensemble Correspondances, one of France’s most renowned early music formations, brings the rarely heard treasures of Scandinavian Baroque to Budapest for the first time.

A Kossuth-díjas Vujicsics együttes alapítótagja, a hetvenéves Borbély Mihály pályafutása során mindig azon dolgozott, hogy bemutassa a hangfolyamok útját azok forrása és deltavidéke között.

The late ’70s saw tremendous enthusiasm brewing over the appearance in cinemas of a new – and quintessentially Hungarian – genre: the ‘Goulash Western’, with films like The Wind Blows Under Your Feet and Wrong-Doers. Despite winning critical acclaim for them, however, director György Szomjas decided to take a completely different approach for his 1981 film.

Any effort to present the finest nuances of the Hungarian language will inevitably turn to its poetry, and while the question of whose poem to select can be open to debate, the list of contenders must invariably include Attila József.

Born into a musical family and soon revealing herself to be a child prodigy, Varijashree Venugopal pioneered the way in integrating her own musical roots, India’s classical Carnatic tradition, into the medium of jazz.

Jazzbois first burst onto the scene at the 2017 Müpa Budapest Jazz Showcase. By 2023, they were hosting Kaláka as guests at the Festival Theatre, and, a couple of years later, they were conquering major international festivals: the Leverkusener Jazztage, the Montreux Jazz Festival, Jazz à Vienne, and the Montreal Jazz Festival, to name but a few. Jamie Cullum also dedicated an entire BBC radio show to the band, including a conversation with Viktor Sági.

Although he caused a scandal in the early ’70s with two of his animated films (Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic), which verge on adults-only fare, Ralph Bakshi remains an unfamiliar name to most people.

The release of the volume A bilincs a szabadság legyen (‘Let the Shackles Be the Freedom’), a collection of the correspondence between Miklós Mészöly and Alaine Polcz, generated a significant level of interest in the writers’ private lives and literary work that, it is no exaggeration to say, continues to this day.

Formed in the late 1990s, the Polish Warsaw Village Band is one of Europe’s most celebrated world music acts, revitalizing and preserving traditional Polish folk music while boldly blending it with modern elements.

The season’s undeniable prestige production, this new Tristan und Isolde features MET music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting, with Lise Davidsen and Michael Spyres in the dual title roles.

The season’s undeniable prestige production, this new Tristan und Isolde features MET music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting, with Lise Davidsen and Michael Spyres in the dual title roles.

It’s not easy to navigate the world of country music with Old World ears. Even defining it is no straightforward task, after all, how do Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Nick Cave and Taylor Swift all fit together?