Love

About

Love is a contemporary opera by composer Judit Varga, an adaptation of the 1971 Hungarian film classic. After winning a competition for adaptation, the Hungarian State Opera presented a gala world premiere in October 2016. Drawing on Tibor Déry’s novellas and Károly Makk’s film, Varga’s score and dramaturgy revisit the 1950s from a new generation’s perspective. The dramatic centre of the work lies in an elderly woman drifting in a dream-like infirmity and in Luca, who refuses to acknowledge the dictatorship; their words and actions are haunted by the ghostly presence of János (their son/husband). On 16 May 2017 the Opera hosted an introductory Hungarian-language presentation with a video screening and discussion related to this work.