Exclusive: Hungarian airforce flies orchestra to Brussels
OrchestrasWhen their flight was cancelled on Monday morning, the Budapest Festival Orchestra were in despair.
They were due to play that evening at the Bozar in Brussels to mark Hungary’s presidency of the Council of the European Union.
This was a national emergency.
So the Hungarian Defense Forces sent a plane from Kecskemét air base to Budapest, where the orchestra boarded and was flown to Brussels, making it in time for the evening’s concert.
Just imagine the RAF doing that for any UK orchestra…
Would they get invited to play in Brussels?
If it was Ireland, there would have been a hastily organised Ryanair flight that would have taken the players but not the instruments.
Bravo! That is really cool, great to have such support!
Hungary’s institutions take pride in supporting the arts; the UK’s institutions (mostly) take pride in dismantling / ‘decolonizing’ them.
Especially impressive in this case, since there’s no love lost between the ruling party and the BFO.
Oh boy… I wonder how much taxpayer’s money this little trip costed…
It is ridiculous that a soft dictatorship with Putinesque tendencies such as Hungary is the President of the EU. It should be thrown out of the EU.
It is ridiculous that you inject your political diatribe into the arts.
Clueless!!!!!
Had been to their performance of Dvorak’s 7th earlier this week – they were in pick form.
Ivan Fischer’s way with the Dvorak 7th is the finest I’ve experienced. In an open rehearsal years ago, he mentioned to the audience his sense of Dvorak’s resentment of Vienna in his use of the waltz in the scherzo movement. Then he paused, and said “It reminds me of Dubcek being forced to dance with Brezhnev’s daughter when he was called to heel in Moscow in 1968.” And indeed, Fischer’s reading of the scherzo has an edge that other interpretations don’t find.
Beaux-arts thanks
This only happens when your government subsidizes 90% of the arts. Biden would have just said, “Well, tough!”
We’re not a consumer society. We tend to splurge on music and National Pride. And we do have airplanes.