"The contemporary artist breaks emotional and intellectual barriers, breaks social taboos, and moves us forward."Continue reading
Freedom and Love – Petőfi 200, an all-arts performance for secondary school students, has been awarded the Music Event of the Year of the Petőfi Music Prize, the Imre Kertész Institute informed MTI.
Sándor Petőfi, one of the greatest Hungarian poets, was born 200 years ago. In his works he touched upon various topics, many of them still relevant in today’s world.
Freedom and Love – Petőfi 200 is a modern, drifting, concert theater production that spectacularly presents the love between Sándor Petőfi and Júlia Szendrey, the poet’s revolutionary spirit, the passion of his poems, the overwhelming importance of freedom and love in the poet’s life. The values that were intensified during the 1848-49 Revolution and War of Independence: freedom and patriotism are also brought to life in the play.
Sándor Petőfi. Photo via Wikipedia
The script was written by Zsolna Ugron, Attila József Prize-winning writer and artistic director of the Imre Kertész Institute, using the works of Júlia Szendrey, Sándor Petőfi, and Endre Ady.
The backbone of the production are Petőfi’s poems, nine of which have been arranged by popular music performers in their own style. The clips of the Petőfi poem settings in the production have been available on the Imre Kertész Institute’s YouTube channel since February.
The free performance premiered on March 15 in Budapest at the House of Traditions with a double sold-out audience, and in May it was also shown at Müpa Budapest.
The production was presented to almost 5,000 students in six rural locations: Balassagyarmat, Zalaegerszeg, Békéscsaba, Nyíregyháza, Szolnok, and Debrecen – as part of the Petőfi 200 – Freedom is a Common Good program series which was supported by the National Cultural Fund.
On behalf of the Foundation for Research on Central and Eastern European History and Society, the award was accepted by Zsolna Ugron, Artistic Director of the Imre Kertész Institute, and Tamás Szabó, Program Director.
Via MTI, Featured Photo via Facebook/Müpa Budapest