Szeged to Host MEZZO Opera Finals

French classical and jazz television broadcaster MEZZO will host the finals of its annual opera contest in the Hungarian city of Szeged on November 3-17.

This year's contest involved five partners: the Csokonai Theatre (Debrecen, Hungary), the Baltic Opera (Gdansk, Poland), the Théâtre Bienne Soleure (Bienne, Switzerland), the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre (Ostrava, Czech Republic) and the Dicapo Opera Theatre (New York, USA). The partners will all bring productions to Szeged for the close of the contest. The Dicapo Opera Theatre will perform Tobias Picker's Emmeline, directed by Róbert Alföldi. The Csokonai Theatre will show Last Day of a Condemned, by David Alagna, directed by Nadine Duffaut. The Baltic Opera will show Ariadne auf Naxos, by Richard Strauss. The Théâtre Bienne Soleure will show two one-act operas: L'Heure Espagnole, by Ravel, and Alexandre bis, by Bohuslav Martinu, both directed by Bertalan Bagó. The National Moravian-Silesian Theatre will present Life, by Marco Tutino, directed by Péter Telihay.

Three Hungarians - Péter Balczó, Zoltán Nyári and Rita Rácz - are among the contest's 14 finalists, picked from 381 applicants from 41 countries.

2009.11.03. - 2009.11.17.