Amid orchestra strike, maestro accompanied opera from the piano
OperaIn Budapest last night (we hear) employees of the Hungarian State Opera began industrial action. The first 48 minutes of Don Giovanni went ahead without an orchestra, accompanied on piano by young conductor Martin Rajna and répétiteur Klára Jean.
Here’s a picture of some of the striking musicians.
I wonder why Rajna and Jean weren’t supporting the strike?
Becouse strikes of musicians only affect those who in first place are the only ones who are supportive with musicians: the public and the concertgoers….
Rajna is a guest conductor of the Don Giovanni production and right now correpetitors are on freelance basis at the opera, so no work, no money is the king here. Actually “Mayerling” (a ballet production) was due last night but got cancelled in the morning because the stage crew (on strike) hasn’t removed the probs of Don Giovanni since 3 days, so the MD of the opera decided to change the program. The previous night another opera was played before the curtain with no stage, and he came out and said that whoever was not happy with the change could leave and the ticket money will be refunded.
well I hope he can play the Lizst transcription of “La ci darem la mano” as well as this girl,
https://youtu.be/trrGpwjAg_E?si=yvZ_n-RTQlTyI77E
SD has posted commentary of members of the company who’ve “saved the performance”. The striking musicians seem like after thoughts. Musicians of symphony’s or opera company’s rarely go on strike without good reason. Maybe SD and NL could see beyond the gratuitous click-bait and wait until there are some facts to report about this conflict. Otherwise, for SD and NL, it’s jump-to-conclusions-as-usual, rather than report actual facts or news about a breaking situation.
The strike is because of their salaries, basically. Apparently they haven’t had a significant raise in a while.The average monthly salary of a tutti musician at the Hungarian Opera is 600.000 HUF ( before taxes), something around 1600 EUR, which isn’t enough ( life in Budapest is not that cheap as one would imagine, and inflation has skyrocketed like nowhere in Europe).They could make more money working at Aldi.
Reminds me of the time Music Director Wolfgang Sawallisch played the piano score of (maybe) Lohengrin, in the middle of a blizzard which had paralyzed Philadelphia; so only those residing nearby…maestro Sawallisch and the guest soloists were able to be in attendance. No doubt there is a trans ription of the concert somewhere.
More likely. Tannhäuser.
This also happened last year in Toulouse with Tristan und Isolde.
When the Elizabethan Opera – now the Australian Opera – went on tour, it was the duty of the Music Director to provide piano accompaniment in places where an orchestra was unavailable. In some smaller venues the state of the piano could be questionable, and Georg Tintner found one somewhere in Queensland that was a semitone sharp. So he sat down and transposed down the whole of ‘Cosi Fan Tutte” at sight …
For the first time in 140 years ! Strike at Budapest State Opera !
With tree people we came from Holland for the Mayerling ballet. A financial disaster for us, this special trip arranged for this occasion…..embarrassing for the international reputation of the Opera House.