Kádár lemeze / Kádár utolsó beszéde
Historian and documentary filmmaker Tamás Novák staged his 2016 chamber drama, created for the 60th anniversary of the 1956 Revolution, based on Mihály Kornis's book János Kádár's Last Speech.
Schedule
On April 12, 1989, at a closed session of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, János Kádár unexpectedly (and uninvited) appeared to deliver his seemingly incoherent final speech. His rambling, often almost incoherent address is burdened by the weight of old sins, and amid the many silences and evasions, reality seeps through in all its horror. Behind this authentic historical text, evoking Shakespearean royal dramas, a "set" is built from a Schoenberg cantata, to make it clear: history is the cruelest and most just director. Historian and documentary filmmaker Tamás Novák staged his 2016 chamber drama, created for the 60th anniversary of the 1956 Revolution, based on Mihály Kornis's book *János Kádár's Last Speech*. This production is now reimagined ten years later, moving from the attic of the Opera House to the spacious stage of the Eiffel Workshop House, and growing into a full theatrical performance.
On the 70th anniversary of the Revolution, before the audience can (once again) witness the battle raging in the confused mind of the country's former leader and his wrestling with ghosts, another face of Kádár can be discovered. The film *Kádár's Record*, produced by the Hungarian State Opera, also directed by Tamás Novák and based on graphic artist István Orosz's pseudo-documentary screenplay, is enriched by the musical atmosphere of Gábor Csiki, chorus director of the Opera's Chorus. Its subject is a peculiar gramophone record from János Kádár's estate, on which a Schumann–Heine ballad takes on a special significance, first leading to the murder of the tsar's family, then bringing us back to the reprisals of 1956. The film is screened in the largest and best-equipped cinema in Hungary, the Bánffy Hall of the Opera's Eiffel Workshop House, with Dolby Atmos sound technology.
Performance length: 1 hour 45 minutes with one intermission
Language: Hungarian
Director and author: Tamás Novák
Composer and conductor: Gábor Csiki
Mezzo-soprano: TBA
Featuring the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra
EIFFEL ART STUDIOS
The largest indoor complex in Hungarian railway history, a system of vast covered spaces unique in Europe, the Northern Railway Maintenance and Engineering Works was built between 1884 and 1886. After years of alterations and renovations, starting from 2020 it is now home to the Hungarian State Opera’s new logistics and art centre.
