Sol León and Paul Lightfoot’s playful Sad Case, Hans van Manen’s intimate Trois Gnossiennes, András Lukács’s compelling Whirling, and Harald Lander’s virtuoso classic Études open the Hungarian National Ballet’s 2026/27season. The programme, entitled Dancingly Yours and comprising four one-act ballets, is performed six times at the Hungarian State Opera between 12 and 20 September 2026.
Instinctive joie de vivre, the unusual interdependence of man and woman, images of drifting, and classical ballet technique itself take centre stage in the evening’s four markedly different choreographies. From contemporary movement to neoclassicism and classical ballet, Dancingly Yours demonstrates the many stories, emotions and ideas that the human body can convey. The double and triple casts feature the ballet company’s leading soloists: Gergő Ármin Balázsi, Maria Beck, Jessica Carulla Leon, Claudia García Carriera, Lili Felméry, Iurii Kekalo, Motomi Kiyota, Sobin Lee, Tatyjana Melnyik, András Rónai, Louis Scrivener, Maria Yakovleva, and Boris Zhurilov.
The programme opens with Sad Case by Sol León and Paul Lightfoot. Created in 1998 by the artistic partnership long associated with Nederlands Dans Theater, the choreography is set to energetic Mexican mambos. Its grotesque and at times almost instinctive movements bring together humour and tension, constraint and freedom. Among the approximately sixty works created together by León and Lightfoot, the piece has become one of the defining works of their artistic careers.
An entirely different world is created by Hans van Manen’s duet Trois Gnossiennes. Set to Erik Satie’s meditative music, the Dutch choreographer distils the relationship between two people into just a few minutes: trust and vulnerability, intimacy and distance alternate in the delicately crafted pas de deux. The work also has a special Hungarian connection: van Manen created the female role for Mária Aradi, a former dancer of the Hungarian State Opera, for its 1982 world premiere. Aradi is once again involved in staging the work this season. In the production, which features live piano accompaniment on stage, principal Maria Yakovleva and first soloist Sobin Lee perform the female role on the stage of the Opera House for the first time.
Whirling by András Lukács is set to the repetitive music of Philip Glass. A former soloist of the Hungarian National Ballet, Lukács originally created the work as a pas de deux in 2005 before expanding it to nine couples in 2010. The spiralling flow of the movements, bodies clinging to one another, and Glass’s pulsating music evoke both the swirling of water and the human experience of drifting. Inspired by Stephen Daldry’s 2002 film The Hours and the tragic fate of Virginia Woolf, the work has become a recurring favourite with both audiences and the company.
The show concludes with Harald Lander’s Études, created in 1948, in which classical ballet itself takes the leading role. The Danish choreographer brings the entire arc of a ballet class to the stage: from the simplest exercises at the barre, through increasingly complex combinations, turns and jumps, to a finale involving the full company. Set to an orchestral arrangement of Czerny’s piano études, the work offers an insight into the daily work of ballet dancers while paying tribute to the virtuosity of classical technique.
Whirling and Études also feature the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra under the baton of the talented young conductor Johannes Marsovszky. Dancingly Yours is presented six times during the season at the Opera House: on 12 September, twice on 13 September, and on 18, 19, and 20 September 2026.
Photo by Péter Rákossy
