HAMUPIPŐKE (5+)

Attendind a performance of Messiah is always a thrilling experience, but it is especially so when Handel’s work – which has become a national classic in England – is performed by a dedicated ensemble like the legendary German flagship of the international early-music scene: the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, now with over 44 years of history behind it. The storied chamber orchestra will perform with one of the world’s finest mixed choirs, the RIAS Kammerchor, which also hails from Berlin and was founded in the years immediately following the Second World War.

Szilvia Bognár, Bori Magyar and Ági Szalóki are three leading female figures in the Hungarian folk and world music scene, who have put the joy and power of communal singing at the heart of their new joint production.

Eternally youthful even at 80, Géza Bereményi is one of the most colourful personalities on Hungary’s contemporary literary and cultural scene. A first-rate novelist and the director of now-classic films, Bereményi has also, and not least of all, proved to be a unique songwriter and lyricist with an unlimited font of inspiration and a personal stage presence that is an experience in itself.