Hungarian State Opera
Opera house in Budapest, Hungary
The Hungarian State Opera is the national opera company of Hungary. Located in Budapest, it is a busy institution, with over 200 operas each calendar year, on top of extensive educational programs, ballet, and musical theatre. The company employs 150 singers, a 200-member orchestra, and a 200-member chorus. Performances take place in the Hungarian State Opera House and the Erkel Theatre.
In recent years, the company has also courted controversy, both in choices of casting, and in succumbing to public pressure to end scheduled productions early.
The year 2024 marked the 140th anniversary of its opening. In the same year, they announced the expansion of the “Opera Digitár” database which allows for the search of 60,000 performances, and the careers of more than 7,000 artists over the previous 139 seasons.
History
Origin
The Hungarian State Opera, or the Royal Hungarian Opera, as it was known until 1945, was founded in 1884 in Budapest. Its first director was Hungarian conductor and composer Ferenc Erkel, whose name now graces the second performance space that the company occupies.
The first performance of the company included the first act of Bánk bán by Erkel (considered to be an important, patriotic Hungarian opera), and the first act of Richard Wagner's Lohengrin.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Hungarian State Opera” is opera house in Budapest, Hungary. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Hungarian, State and Opera, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “opera house in Budapest, Hungary” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q65122221. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2024, 1945 and 1884.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Hungarian State Opera”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Hungarian State Opera primary sources, Hungarian State Opera archive and Hungarian research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hungarian State Opera”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Hungarian State Opera” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.