Here we have Erkel's second opera. He's best known for Bánk bán, which...well, I was not in a great frame of mind when I saw it, so I think I probably underrated it a bit. I think it's probably very good if not great. Well, that's that, but this is this.
It's sort of hard to understand this at first, just because there are all these Hungarian names and it's a cultural context that we, by which I mean me, are not really familiar with. You sort of just have to go with it until things become clearer, although honestly, at the end, I stillwasn't clear who exactly the title character was meant to be (turns out, per wikipedia, he's the son of a famous general who defended Hungary against the Ottoman Empire). Anyway, the weak and insecure king, also named László (yeah, thanks for that), is freaked out about possible plots against him, so he tacitly gives one of his advisors, his uncle, permission to have Hunyadi assassinated. But he learns about the plot and survives, killing the uncle, and the king "forgives" him to avoid personal exposure. He's going to marry his fiancée Mária, and everything's great, but the king is also in love with her, and her evil father, Gara, convinces the king that Hunyadi should be executed so he can have her. Why? Really, really not clear; apparently he thinks he can thus become king, but...really, who knows. It seems like a situation where Erkel, having determined that this was to be a tragedy, figured out a way in retrospect to make it into one. So, anyway, he's executed and nobody's happy. Well, okay, Gara is presumably happy, and maybe the king, although he abruptly vanishes after okaying the execution. Anyway, la. All I know about Hungarian history I learned from this and Bánk bán, so I'm just going to assume that this whole country has never known anything other than over-the-top, bloodsoaked grimness.
So yes, grim, but I must say, a pretty great opera. Erkel's music is really spectacular, and there are some fantastic individual moments, including Gara's villain aria and a wonderful third-act love duet between Hunyadi and Mária before everything goes all pear-shaped. And to think: this is only available in any form because of a 1977 German (I think) teleplay. It's really well-executed (yeah, I generally prefer films of actual theatrical performances, but I don't mind) and all the Hungarian singers I'd never heard of do a fine job. The guy playing the king was particularly interesting, with a voice not quite like anything I'd heard before: a very high tenor who at times sounds very much like a countertenor. Interesting. I really want to see more Erkel operas (he wrote eight of them), but this and Bánk bán,are the only ones currently available in any form. this article says that Hungary's current hard-right government is spending a lot of money funding the opera--in a nationalistic way; it sucks that the government has to be what it is, obviously, but you'd think that it would at least mean we'd get to see more performances from the guy who is, after all, considered Hungary's national composer. Get on it, you horrible fascist goons!
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