The last opera by András Kalmár

Péter Eötvös, the world-famous Hungarian composer, would have turned 82 on January 2, 2026. On this occasion, a documentary about his last work, Valuska, was released on the Internet. The film premiered in January 2025 at the Átlátszó Hang New Music Festival at the BMC, where it had to be screened twice due to the great interest, and was then invited to Berlin, and this summer it was also presented at the Hungarian Film Festival. Valuska, Eötvös’s first Hungarian-language opera, was commissioned by the Hungarian State Opera House and premiered on the occasion of the composer’s 80th birthday. The libretto was based on the novel The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai, who has since been awarded the Nobel Prize. The performance, directed by Bence Varga, won the International Opera Awards 2024. The 26-minute documentary with English subtitles is available to anyone here.