Ferenc
Erkel’s Operas on Stage and in Print
Both
Hunyadi László and Bánk bán have to the present day preserved
their outstanding place in the repertory wherever opera in
the Hungarian language has been given. The later operas of
Erkel have fared with lesser success at the time of their
first productions and later. Occasional revivals in Budapest
and Kolozsvár do show that this negligence is to a great
part unjustified.
In
spite of repeated attempts to stage Hunyadi László and Bánk
bán on non-Hungarian stages, cultivation of Erkel’s oeuvre
remained confined to the territory of Hungarian musical culture
which encompasses not only present-day Hungary but Transylvania,
Slovakia and the northern territories of Serbia as well.
This state of affairs was to a great part to be ascribed
to the limited accessibility of Erkel’s music in print. Up
to the year 2002, not one of his operatic scores has ever appeared in print. Vocal scores have
scarcely been published either, except for the two constantly
popular pieces Hunyadi László and Bánk bán which around 1900
were edited by Rózsavölgyi at a respectable standard.
The idea of a complete edition of Ferenc Erkel’s operas first emerged in the
early 1960s. Composer and musicologist Jeno Vécsey, head
of the Music Collection of the National Széchényi Library,
prepared four operas and all of Erkel's overtures for publication
as part of a project initiated by Ferenc Bónis, then of the Institute for musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. However, the publication of the series did not begin,
and Vécsey's scores have remained in manuscript.
A new undertaking to publish
a critical edition of this important body of Hungarian musical
heritage was embarked upon in 1998. With the publication
in two volumes of the score of Erkel’s first opera Bátori
Mária by the publisher Rózsavölgyi and Co. in April
2002, the Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy
of Sciences and the Széchényi National Library
of Hungary have commenced the critical edition of the whole
series of Ferenc Erkel’s operas. Bátori Mária will be followed
in the years 2004-2005 by the two most important works of
Hungarian national opera, Hunyadi László and Bánk bán, published
by Rózsavölgyi.
|
