Budapest Festival Center Kht., the public benefit company in charge of organizing programs of the Budapest Spring Festival, has secured a number of grand-scale performances for the 25th Festival. The organizing company counted the biggest coup by including the Chicago Symphonic Orchestra, formerly led by Hungarian conductor György Solti, in the program. Another, partly local, grandiose performance is expected from the Budapest Operetta Theater, which plays Disney’s “Beauty and the beast” musical in its own adaptation, which is a European first.

Besides the own adaptation, the Theater must keep the original music and lyrics, otherwise it pays a USD 100,000 penalty to the license-holder. However, the Theater staged the world-famous musical with costumes resembling art pieces of the Herend China Manufacture, a main sponsor of the show.

The Festival’s opening event will be the Egyptian exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts, which was widely publicized by the participation of newly appointed Culture Minister András Bozóki in formally unwrapping the artifacts, which are first exhibited outside Egypt.