Szilveszter Ókovács, general director of the Hungarian State Opera House of Budapest said that while the timing of the premiere as of now is uncertain as the Opera House is undergoing a major renovation, the first production of the Christian season will be Salome by Richard Strauss.
The defining feature of the new production will be the stage design, which will be based on the reconstruction of the Machaerus Palace, recently completed by a team of Hungarian archeologists.
Machaerus Palace reconstruction (image: Biblical Archeology Society)
A team led by egyptologist Győző Vörös – in cooperation with the Hungarian Academy of Arts and the antiquities directorate of Jordan – made a virtual reconstruction of the Machaerus Palace, which, according to Flavius Josephus, was is the location of the imprisonment and execution of John the Baptist.
This is the second time that Hungary hosts the International Eucharistic Congress, with the first one also held in Budapest in 1938. Budapest had been named host city by Pope Francis in January 2016, at the end of the 2016 International Eucharistic Congress held in Cebu City, Philippines.
Title image: Budapest Opera House interior
