Bartók Plus Opera Festival, established at the turn of the millennium, is rated as the most significant Bartók festival sustaining and developing further Béla Bartók’s oeuvre in a unique way. The epoch-making musician’s stage and orchestral works make up the central core of the festival’s programme.
The mission of the festival, inspired by the world famous composer’s spirit and spirituality, is to present the popular opera repertory after Bartók, and to encourage the creation of contemporary works. Bartók Plus, in its Artistic Manifesto, has invited present day composers to write the “popular opera of our age” to create an easy to receive opera genre. This initiative is followed by a series of premieres.
It was this search for the new directions of the opera genre that inspired the launch of “Key to the Future” –Opera Composition Competition in 2013. Through the advertisement of this competition Bartók Plus Opera Festival has discovered talented young composers now on the international music scene.
In addition to performing Bartók’s oeuvre, contemporary operas of our age and the works submitted for the opera composition competition, Bartók Plus presents the audience with very special performances of the best known and most popular pieces of operatic literature. In the programme “Opera for Thousands” based on the concept that “Opera should belong to everyone” these classical masterpieces are produced as large-scale open air performances in public places in the city. These free-of charge performances relying on the participation of the audience create new perspectives for these deservedly popular operas outside the walls of the theatre.