Budapest's Margaret Island Theatre Reveals 2025 Season Highlights

  • 15 Jan 2025 7:32 AM
Budapest's Margaret Island Theatre Reveals 2025 Season Highlights
The Margaret Island Open Air Theatre has announced its 2025 season, which will be open to the public from May to September. 

The program includes, among others, the opera Lady Butterfly and Nabucco, the musicals Rudolf and Shrek, a ballet performance titled Coco Chanel, the life of a fashion icon, a production by the Malevo dance group, as well as a concert, circus and musical show.

The theater, which attracts almost 100,000 spectators annually, aims to serve the needs of visitors with different interests, regardless of age, during the seasons from May to September, the theater emphasized in a statement sent to MTI.

The theater is also hosting two musical performances. Frank Wildhorn and Jack Murphy's historically inspired musical Rudolf will be staged under the direction of Gábor Bakos-Kiss. ​​The joint production with the Győr National Theater will be presented in July with two casts.

Shrek the Musical will be the family musical premiere of the 2025 Margaret Island summer season. The musical, based on the DreamWorks hit film, was composed by Jeanine Tesori, with lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire.

The joint performance with the József Attila Theatre will be directed by Szente Vajk, choreographed by Péter Lajos Túri, and the main roles will be played by Márk Ember, Csaba Zöldi, Tamás Veréb and Angéla Tóth.

On August 8, the audience will be treated to a Frank Wildhorn musical gala, featuring a selection of the world-famous author's works, including Jekyll and Hyde, Rudolf, and Carmen, with the artists of the Budapest Operetta Theatre.

This year's opera premieres include Puccini's Lady Butterfly, starring Italian soprano Francesca Sassu and Madrid-born tenor Joel Prieto. The performance will feature the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and the Kodály Choir Debrecen, conducted by Dániel Tóth Somogyi. The production will be performed on June 26 and 28.

The title role in Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco will be played by George Petean, with Anastasia Bartoli as Abigél. The performance will feature the Kodály Philharmonic and the Kodály Choir Debrecen, conducted by István Dénes.

The Margaret Island Theatre celebrates National Unity Day with a grand event, together with the National Philharmonic Orchestra.

The special feature of this year's evening is that György Vashegyi, the Chief Music Director of the National Philharmonic Orchestra, will conduct for the first time, and French violinist Marina Chiche will play on the Margaret Island stage for the first time.

In addition to pieces by the greats of Hungarian music, Zoltán Kodály, Ferenc Liszt, and Ernő Dohnányi, the concert will also feature Beethoven's melodies.

The audience will be able to hear Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major performed by Marina Chiche.

The theater will also organize a Children's Day event next year, which will close with a film-music concert, a screening of ET, the Extra-Terrestrial. The audience will be able to see the entire film, accompanied by an orchestra. The Danubia Orchestra will be conducted by Ernst van Tiel.

For adults, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho will also be screened, with music by Bernard Herrmann. 

The Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra will also be conducted by Ernst van Tiel at the screening of this film classic, which can be experienced with orchestral accompaniment.

Coco Chanel, the life of a fashion icon, a contemporary ballet performance comes from Brno to Margaret Island. 

The piece uses jazz, French chansons, unique clothing poems, dynamic choreography and lyrical scenes to tell the main stages of the life of the famous French fashion designer in dance. The performance is choreographed by the company's leader, Mario Radacovsky.

The Malevo dance group is coming to the theater from Argentina. The production, which consists of exclusively male dancers and musicians, features elements of flamenco, tango, and Irish tap.

This year's program also includes the Alice in Wonderland circus show, based on Lewis Carroll's fairy tale, which combines dance, acrobatics, and circus arts.

Among the concerts is a performance by American jazz-soul singer Gregory Porter on May 17. 
 

Pianist Maksim Mrvica will come to Margaret Island with his show Segmenti. The band Chico and the Gypsies will perform again, with French-Armenian musician Levon Minassian as their guest.

Among the domestic performers are Edda Művek, Takács Nikolas, Budapest Bar and Magna Cum Laude.

The theater's expanding program also includes free weekend children's performances, additional concerts, thematic exhibitions in the Water Tower Lookout, Pentecost events, literary and musical events. 

Further information is available at www.margitszigetiszinhaz.hu .

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