Nearly 1000 guests got the chance to watch Ildebrando D'Arcangelo and Kristian Benedikt take the stage of the Hungarian State Opera at the Háry Gala on 25 February, the second year for the annual event to be held in this new “total art” format at the Opera House.
The Opera held its Háry Gala, considered its pre-eminent social, artistic and philanthropic event of the season, with the participation of two star guests. Joining the renowned Italian bass-baritone Ildebrando D'Arcangelo at the last minute to replace the suddenly ailing Alexandr Antonenko was Lithuanian tenor Kristian Benedikt, a substitution that in no way detracted from the evening's artistic quality. A total of 922 guests attended the affair at the Andrássy Avenue palace, with more than 300 of them sitting down for the dinner. The Opera's interior spaces were specially dressed up for the festive occasion held in honour of Hungary's armed bodies, ambulance service and disaster management organisations, with nearly 5000 white flowers being employed. The dinner tables also served as mini-terrain tables, manned by tin soldiers and chess pieces, while the emblematic grand staircase in the atrium was lined with suits of armour and mail. Also displayed were swords, shields and flags, as well as motifs from the “William Tell” playing cards traditionally used in Hungary. In addition to the two world-famous guest stars, the gala event featured ten opera soloists, four ballet soloists as well as six other ballet dancers, 88 members of the chorus, 61 orchestra musicians, one actor and one conductor, who together performed excerpts from operas and ballets inspired by the “Hungarian Season” currently underway at the HSO, including Háry János and The Spinning Room.
The successfully executed gala night of high-quality entertainment was once again followed by a charity auction, with the revenues going to the National Ambulance Service. The items put up for auction brought in closing bids of 2,045,000 forints. The point of the new “total art” charity event format now being employed for the second time is for the Opera to welcome as wide an audience as possible to this unique gathering that is held once each season, and which has been based around a specific theme for the last four. Repeating the new format adopted last year, the seating in the auditorium was not dismantled to make way for a ballroom, and new functions were again given to the loveliest spaces in the Opera House, with Selektor Emka DJ spinning tunes in the Feszty Bar until the wee hours, while the ensemble Valami Swing kept the music going on the main stage. With the auditorium nearly filled up yet again for this evening showcasing the two guest stars, the original objectives for the Opera's thematic festivities were also met. BMW was the Háry Gala's premium strategic and mobility partner, joined by ruby-level media sponsors Képmás, Origo and HG Media and key media sponsors Centrál Media, Marketing&Media and Papageno.
The entire Háry Gala programme, the most magical of the year, is being broadcast by television channel M5 at 7:40 pm on 6 March, allowing those who were not able to attend the Saturday-night opera gala to also partake in the night's riches. On the morning of Sunday, 26 February, the day after the gala event, the Opera once again hosted disadvantaged children in the auditorium of the Opera House. It is now traditional for the charity event to be followed by the Breadcrumb Ball, which through cooperation with aid organisations brings in around a thousand young children each year. The popular initiative attracted as much interest as ever, resulting in a full house of young viewers to enjoy Engelbert Humperdinck's fairy tale opera Hänsel und Gretel.