Original version

BBC World Service Online

Assignment

Factual

Investigations and journeys into the heart of global events from BBC correspondents.

Assignment: Hungary’s Crusading Conductor

Learning

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Factual: Life Stories

Factual: History

Factual: Politics

News

Religion & Ethics

Hungary’s Crusading Conductor

13/03/2014

BBC World Service - Assignment, Hungary’s Crusading Conductor

Lucy Ash catches up with the Hungarian composer Ivan Fischer

Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer is holding up a mirror to Hungarian society and has written an opera to expose growing racial intolerance. Lucy Ash reports.

The head of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer, is using culture to expose growing racial intolerance in his homeland.  The success of the extreme right wing party Jobbik in the 2010 elections prompted him to write an opera denouncing antisemitism. 

The one act opera The Red Heifer, draws on an incident 130 years ago when a young girl went missing in a village in north-east Hungary. Local Jews were accused of murdering the 14-year-old and were eventually acquitted but blood libel stories such as these still resonate more than a century later.  

But some have accused Fischer of cultural politicking and say he is in danger of besmirching the country’s image abroad. Lucy catches up with the composer as he rehearses for his next performance. 

(Photo: Hungarian composer Ivan Fischer. Credit: Marco Borggreve)

BBC World Service

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Assignment

Hungary’s Crusading Conductor

Genres

Brand

BBC World Service Online

About BBC World Service