Opéra Cinématique
Fragments and excerpts from Hungarian silent films with live performances by the Moment's Notice Trio and the Modern Art Orchestra

In the first thirty years of cinema history, when films were still being shown in cinemas without sound, around 600 feature films were made in Hungary, including dozens of works by the world-famous Sándor Korda and Mihály Kertész – but only a few dozen of these have survived in their entirety or in fragmentary form, as neither the rapid spread of sound films nor the lack of archives favoured the survival of the genre. The first Hungarian short film, The Dance, was made in 1901 to illustrate a lecture on the history of dance.

The surviving works of the internationally acclaimed, flourishing Hungarian silent film industry are being collected and restored by the Hungarian National Film Institute's archive, whose growing collection of over 80 items has inspired some of the most prominent representatives of Hungarian contemporary music. In June, the BMC will host a two-part concert series entitled Opéra Cinématique, a dialogue between silent film extracts and live music made between 1900 and 1927.

On 12 June, the Moment's Notice Trio's musical discourses, born in the moment, will interpret the output of the first golden age of Hungarian filmmaking, in the form of feature film extracts and fragments.

On 14 June, silent films will be interwoven with compositions by soloists and composers of the Modern Art Orchestra under the artistic direction of Kornél Fekete-Kovács. The programme will include not only feature film clips, but also documenatrues of everyday life in the first half of the 20th century. This time, the drama will not be expressed by events happening on stage, but will unfold through a dialogue between images and music.

12 June 19:00 Opéra Cinématique 1 - Moment's Notice Trio

14 June 19:00 Opéra Cinématique 2 - Modern Art Orchestra