Parázsfuvolácska (The Magic Flute for Children)

The director’s concept

For me, The Magic Flute is an unfathomable work. It was probably Mozart’s genius combined with Schikaneder’s “marketing-oriented” collaboration that could give rise to such a creation, at once complex and simple, exalted and primitive, incomprehensible and straightforward. There are few works in the operatic repertoire that allow the director such freedom, such free thinking. In other words, whether the story is set on the Moon or under the sea, it still works. We have placed The Magic Flute for Children in a circus, where Sarastro is the great magician, the Queen of the Night is the ruler of the air, Papageno, Tamino, and their partners are the clowns, Monostatos is the knife thrower, the Speaker is the Ringmaster, and of course there are the animals that Tamino tames. Everything is in place for a truly exciting circus performance to come to life, set to Mozart’s fresh, contemporary-sounding music.

Attila Toronykőy

The circus

“Panem et circenses!” – that is, “Bread and circuses!” – went a famous saying of the Roman Empire around the beginning of our era. Indeed, beyond securing their daily bread, people have since ancient times had a need for spectacles and games that lift them out of everyday life. In Rome, already in the early centuries, large circus buildings were erected where hundreds of thousands of people could watch spectacular equestrian games, animal combats, battle scenes, and the bloody duels of gladiators. The very name of the circus also dates from these times, since the word circus means a circle or a circular building. After the fall of the Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages, institutions resembling circuses did not operate, but groups of performers of various sizes roamed the roads, stopping from time to time in towns and visiting feudal lords to entertain people with interesting and spectacular shows. Among them were jugglers, fire-eaters, conjurers, and singing storytellers.

The direct predecessors of what we now call the circus as a form of entertainment can be found precisely in the age of Mozart and Schikaneder, in England. A former cavalry officer named Philip Astley opened his circular theatre in London in 1768, where astonishing equestrian displays were presented, while between the riding acts clowns, tightrope walkers, and acrobats entertained the audience. The circular circus ring was also Astley’s idea: the audience could thus watch the performance simultaneously from all sides. This varied equestrian spectacle, rich in attractions, soon became popular not only in Europe but also in America. Traveling circus companies sprang up one after another, setting up their circular tents here and there; leadership of the troupe often passed from father to son, giving rise to famous circus dynasties. In Hungary, the first circus with a permanent venue was the Barokaldi Circus, which operated in Budapest’s City Park from 1871. Although that building no longer stands, not far from its former site rises the building of the Capital Circus of Budapest, constructed in 1972.

Lajos Csákovics