"If I remove Yevgeny Prigozhin, who tarnished Wagner's name, from the position of leading material, then I am either at the peak of my career, or the Index has sunk very deep," said the director of the Opera House in an interview.
Slowly, not a week or even a day or two goes by without an article about you. On Monday, he started the week and his new term as director general with a company meeting, which some people learned about anew, but more on that a little later. Many people are interested in the index's articles during and after the tender. Leaks, the publication of candidate evaluations, and recently the apparent "disassembly" of your application. Are these all public documents?
In fact, it doesn't concern many people, but some people at the Index and the political left, no doubt, because they have been vocal opponents for months. According to the decree, publicity must be ensured afterwards, but the concepts can be interpreted broadly and the right can be abused. Insight is fine, but it does no good to any tender of this type if every step of it is pushed in the face of public opinion, it is not by chance that this disclosure is not customary, and so far the understanding of the press has also helped the institutions to survive during such difficult times. Because the public is not in a position to decipher the essence, let alone the details, of such a technical issue with context and background knowledge.
Even a medical consultation is pointless if it's presented to me because I'm not a doctor, I can't understand it, or what's worse, I might have misunderstood: it's enough to know the decision, that's all.
As to who runs the Opera House as a quasi-office, this only tells something to a narrow professional group - or would the masses of readers know who runs the Vienna Opera or the Scala? They could know if they wanted to know, but they don't because it's not interesting to them. Of course, the highly educated professionals in the press understand this exactly, and if despite this they still cover everything, even the membership of the opinion committee, which is bound to secrecy,
I have to think that there is an intention to scandalize him.
It would also have the culture to acknowledge the loss, but they obviously want to destroy OPERÁ - which will not succeed.
Photo: MTI/Márton Mónus
In his latest article, the journalist of the mentioned portal apparently "judged" your application. In practice, this was a large two-hundred-page document, from which a couple of conflicting situations and sentences that seemed strong out of context were deliberately taken out.
Of course, I understand that Index is playing an unsolicited professional committee and wants to prove that the last decade didn't even happen at the Opera.
The goal was not to present the content of the application, but to plan,
and I see with sadness that in the case of the "analysts" the malnutrition in the opera industry also stops, later even Nabucco was understood as "The Fall". They also doubted the existence of the book, and besides, I always write my things myself, not with crews or negroes.
Aren't you worried that this will continue?
Go! When an article about me with the title "apostle of feudalism" appears in another affiliated organ, and the Index airs a private speech with deliberate - or incomprehensible, but even more corrosive - distortions, it magnifies the exaggeration of dealing with me to a ridiculous extent, despite the obvious oppositional intention.
If I remove Yevgeny Prigozhin, who tarnished Wagner's name, from the position of the leading material, then either I am at the peak of my career, or the Index has sunk very deep.
If, on the other hand, 50 or so (!) articles have already been devoted to Opera, sometimes keeping one material on the front page for days, then it cannot be supported with journalistic arguments anyway, and I do not believe that the readers will honor this with a number of clicks worthy of the front page position. It is obviously different here, in any case, it is unprecedented that a press product tries to destroy the reputation of a national institution with such a frenzy, while undermining its own. But let me finally close this question:
as long as it is written in the law that the current minister decides who is the director of the Opera, and it does not say that Index or hvg or Magyar Narancs, let's calm down. And let's accept it.
As for the identity of the informant, the journalist told you that he was from the ministry. This does not cast a very good light on János Csák's team.
I can speak for Opera, not for the ministry.
It is certain, however, that the minister made a decision, and he did it properly.
The news also spread that now that he has been reappointed, the purge will begin at OPERÁ. The case of Gergely Kesselyák came to light, which he has since told us about in his statement, but that was not quite the case. So how was it exactly?
Gergelly Kesselyák and I started working together in 2002, until the change of government we had a few months to think about the future of the Erkel Theater. A few years later, he became art director and then chief music director under the ministry of András Bozóki, but within a year the team fell apart. I asked Gergő to be the first conductor in February 2016, until then he worked with the usual guest conductor contract. We established a new musical management at that time, chief music director Balázs Kocsár became Gergő's boss, who also stepped forward from his twenty-five-year-old guest conductorship. The seven-year reign of the two of them is the longest period of the last half century, I owe them a debt of gratitude for their work even if Balázs' contract expires in the next few days and if Gergő's name was no longer included in my application. I also told the committee at the hearing,
that I wish to appoint Rajna Martin to the first conductor's chair for the new term,
and Péter Halász, who left the main music administration in 2016, returns as the first guest conductor. We will also be showing a premiere directed by Balázs Kocsár, and Nabucco directed by Gergely Kesselyák, but Hazatérés c. we won't be shying away from the premiere of his opera either, both of them will receive a five-year guest conductor offer again. My procedure is more than correct, moreover, I do nothing but implement what is written in my own application, which is not only not prohibited, but it is directly my job, I was authorized to do so.
The full interview can be read HERE!
Featured image: MTI/Márton Mónus
