Dmitry Timofeev – Landgraf on Dance

“Romeo and Juliet”
Hungarian National Ballet
Hungarian State Opera
Budapest, Hungary
November 8-9, 2025 (evening performance and matinee)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

Most ballet companies have a version of Romeo and Juliet. The Hungarian National Ballet’s version, by László Seregi (1929-2012), has been on the program regularly since its premiere in 1985. A crowd puller, the opera house was sold out at both performances I watched.

Seregi’s name is well known to Hungarian ballet lovers. Initially trained as a folk dancer, he joined the opera’s corps de ballet when it was short on artists during the 1956 revolution. In 1977, he became the company’s director but, feeling burdened by his duties, suffered from an enduring artistic crisis. Continue reading “Applied Faith”

“Without Limits”
Ballet of the Hungarian State Opera
Eiffel Art Studios
Budapest, Hungary
April 23, 2022 (matinee)

The new triple bill from the Hungarian State Opera’s ballet company, aptly titled “Without Limits”, certainly offers a whopping amount of dance. Harald Lander’s “Études” (1948), a one-act homage to the formal classical technique, contrasts with William Forsythe’s sprightly “The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude” (1996). A new version of another purely classical ballet – Marius Petipa’s Paquita Grand Pas (“Paquita Suite”) – opened the program. “Without Limits” was shown at the Eiffel Art Studios, a former railway maintenance and engineering complex transformed in 2020 into the Hungarian Opera’s second stage in Budapest. The capacious, light-filled venue houses a modern 500-seat stage, rehearsal and storage space, production workshops, and an exhibition area. The toot-toot of the historic locomotive located in the foyer calls the audience back after breaks. Continue reading “A Whole Lot”