Equipped with a map of the city and a sunny day, Dan and I decided that we would do what we most love to do in a beautiful foreign city–walk! We decided to walk over to the Hungarian State Opera House (Magyar Allami Operahaz) to see about getting a tour of the building, and thence to the Jewish quarter.
On the way, we chanced to come upon the dazzling St. Stephen’s Basilica (Szent Istvan Bazilika). This basilica, completed in 1905, is dedicated to the first king of Hungary, who died in 1038, and whose right hand is still preserved in the church’s reliquary.
The architect was a well-known Hungarian architect of the time, Miklos Ybl, whose last name appears to need a vowel. This is one of his most famous buildings. One reason the basilica took so long to construct (54 years) is that the dome, which was under construction, collapsed in 1868. The entire church had to be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up. I cannot imagine how tragic this must have felt to the architect! He did live to see it begun again, but died before its completion.
Had we actually read our guide book, we probably would have known about basilica in advance, but not being much for touring churches we might have decided in advance not to go in. As it was, we had no preconceptions. The basilica was magnificent; people were going in. So we did too.
And I’m glad we did. Everything about the interior was glorious.
After visiting the basilica, we walked along the wide and gracious Andrassy Ut to the opera house.
Begun in 1875 and completed in 1884, this building too is the work of architect Miklos Ybl. Those among you interested in architectural drawings can find plans and a beautiful section of the building by following this link.
The entry loggia has beautiful ceilings, and I began to get the idea that I would spend a lot of my time in Hungary looking up.
When we did tour the opera house a day or two later, we learned that as part of the short-lived Austro-Hungarian Empire, Budapest had to seek the permission of Emperor Franz Joseph in order to build an opera house. The emperor, being Austrian and justifiably proud of the newly completed State Opera House in Vienna, wanted no competition from upstart Hungary. (It’s worth noting here that the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been formed less than a decade before, in 1867, as a result of a war between Austria and Hungary; and the two nations, though united, were not on comfortable terms.) He granted permission and established a budget sufficient to building an opera house, but not a magnificent one, nothing that would outshine his new opera house in Vienna.
The Hungarians, delighting in their cleverness even to this day, responded by building an opera house that was smaller and relied where possible on local materials, but was in every notable way as grand as any opera house anywhere.
Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife attended only one opera there, on opening night, and were (according to our guide) so miffed at the magnificence of the place that they never came back.
Well, they did also have a first-rate opera house right there in Vienna. Maybe they just didn’t like to travel.
Whether this story is true or not–the Budapest Opera House does have a reputation as one of the top three opera houses in Europe for acoustics.
