In 1999, Michael Staff, Chair of Eastbourne Choral Society, for whom Musica Europa had recently arranged a concert tour to Switzerland, asked me to organise an opera tour to the Verdi Opera Festival in Budapest in January 2000 for him and a number of his opera lover friends.
It was a magical experience for the 14 members who travelled in that first week of January not least because everywhere was transformed by thick snow. We attended three operas (La Traviata, Aida and Un Ballo in Maschera) in the beautiful Budapest State Opera House built in 1884 to rival those Opera Houses of Paris, Dresden and Vienna. Hot “Bableves” (Hungarian bean soup) back at the Hotel Erzsébet after the opera was a delicious and welcome cold weather antidote.
An interesting and incidental piece of history is that Eastbourne Choral Society was founded and conducted at the time by the former operatic soprano Elizabeth Muir Lewis who was married to the late Richard Lewis CBE, the internationally renowned tenor.
There is much to look forward to in 2024, so may I take this opportunity to wish all of our Opera Club friends a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
