Kodaly's obscure and popular opera

Synopsis

There are some operas which are rarely — if ever — staged, but whose music becomes famous — even wildly popular — in the concert hall. Everyone has heard the overture to Rossini’s William Tell, for example, but only a few fortunate (or very determined) opera fans ever get to see the whole opera staged.

Zoltán Kodály’s opera Háry János falls into this strange class of works both popular and obscure. This comic opera debuted at the Royal Hungarian Opera House in Budapest on today’s date in 1926 and recounts the adventures of an old veteran of the Napoleonic Wars named Háry János.

In the village tavern, Háry boasts of his heroic exploits: how he singlehandedly won a battle against Napoleon, for example, and how the emperor’s wife fell in love with him, and she would have run off with him if he’d wanted, but he chose to remain true to his Hungarian sweetheart back home.

You get the idea.

Kodály’s opera was a hit in Budapest but was not taken up elsewhere. But a concert suite of excerpts from its brilliant score depicting Háry János’s imaginary adventures became a popular showpiece for orchestras, an unbeatable combination of great tunes, colorful orchestration and smile-inducing wit.

Music Played in Today's Program

Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967): Háry János Suite; Budapest Festival Orchestra; Ivan Fischer, conductor; Philips 462 824

On This Day

Births

• 1679 - Baptismal date of Bohemian composer Jan Dismas Zelenka, in Lounovice

• 1821 - Hungarian composer Franz (Ferenc) Doppler, in Lemberg (now Lvov)

Deaths

• 1621 - Dutch composer and organist Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, 59, in Amsterdam

• 1750 - German composer and lutenist Silvius Leopold Weiss, 64, in Dresden

• 1920 - Brazilian composer Alberto Nepomunceno, 56, in Rio de Janeiro

• 1946 - British composer Sir Granville Bantock, 78, in London

Premieres

• 1893 - Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6, in St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: Oct. 28)

• 1912 - Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire, in Berlin

• 1925 - R. Strauss: Parergon to the Symphonia Domestica, for piano left hand and orchestra, in Dresden, with Paul Wittgenstein the soloist

• 1926 - Kodály: opera Háry János, at the Budapest Opera

• 1934 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 13, in Winterthur (Switzerland), by the Musikkollegium orchestra, Hermann Scherchen conducting

• 1938 - Copland: ballet Billy the Kid, in Chicago by the Ballet Caravan Company, with pianists Arthur Gold and Walter Hendel performing a two-piano version of the score. This Oct. 16 premiere date is persistently but incorrectly listed as Oct. 6 in many standard reference works and Copland biographies. First performance of Billy the Kid in New York City occurred May 24, 1939, with an orchestra conducted by Fritz Kitzinger.

• 1942 - Copland: ballet Rodeo, in New York City by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo

• 1960 - Messiaen: Chronochromie, in Donaueschingen, Germany

• 1969 - Leon Kirchner: Music for orchestra, by the New York Philharmonic, with the composer conducting

• 1976 - Peter Maxwell Davies: Five Klee Pictures for orchestra, in London at St. John’s Smith Square, by the Young Musicians’ Symphony, James Blair conducting

• 1988 - Stephen Paulus: Seven for the Flowers Near the River, for viola and piano, by Cynthia Phelps and Warren Jones, at a Music in the Park chamber concert at St. Anthony Park UCC in St. Paul, Minnesota. A revised version of this piece, re-titled Five for the Flowers Near the River, was premiered by the same performers at Alice Tully Hall in New York on October 24, 1988, and recorded in 1998 by Phelps with pianist Judith Gordon for the Cala CD label.

• 1992 - Joan Tower: Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 4 (dedicated to conductor JoAnn Falletta), by the Kansas City Symphony, conducted by Bill McGlaughlin

Others

• 1891 - Inaugural afternoon concert of the Chicago Symphony at the Chicago Auditorium, with Theodore Thomas conducting music of Wagner (Faust Overture), Beethoven (Symphony No. 5), Tchaikovsky (Piano Concerto No. 1 with soloist Rafael Joseffy), and Dvořák (Hussite Overture). The Symphony’s first evening concert occurred the following day.

• 1931 - American premiere of Mahler: Symphony No. 9, by the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky conducting

• 1958 - Leonard Bernstein begins his presentation of a “major view of American music” at New York Philharmonic concerts with a Carnegie Hall concert that includes works by Wallingford Riegger, John J. Becker and Carl Ruggles