The Sceptical Spirit
The two compositions on the programme of the Budafok Dohnanyi Orchestra concern themselves with the ways of the world; Richard Strauss turned to Nietzsche’s epochal work for inspiration, while Levente Gyöngyösi chose a national classic, Imre Madách’s piece. The latter is an award-winning piece of Müpa Budapest’s Composition Competiton 2020, which will have its world premiere now. The first of the planned four parts of Tragœdia Temporis, a large-scale staged oratorio, it deals with the creation, Adam and Eve's life in Paradise and their expulsion from Eden.
The work, whose libretto was written by Judit Ágnes Kiss based on the concept of Levente Gyöngyösi and András Visky, features a very important character who cannot be found in Madách’s drama: a child, an angelic person, who was already by the Lord’s side before Creation. “The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old,” reads the Book of Proverbs. “I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be.” Later it is said: “Then I was constantly at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence.” In Madách, the magnum opus has been finished when the play starts, while in this oratorio “the world comes to be as the prologue of the work, in the witnessing presence of the viewer, by the acquisition of language by the Child,” András Visky said.
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