This 2014 Naxos recording of Ferenc Erkel’s last opera István király (King Stephen, 1885) is the second revival of the opera since it sank into obscurity after the 1930s. The first was a television film production from 1993, which is available on DVD (König Stephan, Video Land Klassik, 2008). A ‘restored’ version of the opera based on a reconstruction of the 1885 score was performed during the ‘Erkel year’ of 2010, and a recording in 2012 resulted in the present CD. In the liner notes, István Kassai (himself a renowned performer of Hungarian piano music) explains that the 1885 version had been badly tampered with after 1896, until it was cut to about half its length by the 1930s, and then banned altogether from 1945 to 1990 by successive communist governments. Unfortunately, the television film that brought the opera back to life in 1993 inherited the legacy of previous ‘ruinous alterations’, resulting in the opera’s poor critical reception (p. 5).

Until the release of this CD, and in the absence of an accessible score (not to mention a definitive critical edition),Footnote ¹ the 1993 video had been the only available representation of the opera. That filmed version is in two acts and has a running time of 96 minutes. By contrast, Naxos’s recording retains the original four-act structure (restoring some important plotlines) and has a running time of 141 minutes. Moreover, this new recording has some truly inspired performances, especially from the Budapest Symphony Orchestra led by Valéria Csányi and the King Stephen Opera Chorus led by Ákos Somogyváry. The solo singing is more uneven in the CD version than in the film version, but the quality of performance is less important for the present review.

The more fundamental issue is whether we should treat the new CD as the only currently viable version of the opera. How different is it from the 1993 film? Is it significantly better as a work of art, irrespective of its supposed authenticity? In any case, we do not know the extent to which Erkel’s sons were involved in the opera’s composition, and therefore any assertion that the posthumous cuts and edits were unjustified, let alone ‘ruinous’, requires a robust defence. We do not, moreover, get a clear sense of who was directly responsible for the present reconstruction (Kassai himself, presumably), nor of the editorial process involved. I have not found any scholarly publication that gives insight into these issues. Nevertheless, I will provisionally refer to the 2012 recording as the ‘1885 version’, as it is safe to assume it is much closer (identical?) to the premiere version than anything else available at present.

Both CD and DVD versions share the same basic plotline. An aging King Stephen, or István (c. 975–1038, the founder of the Kingdom of Hungary), intends to secure his legacy by marrying his son Imre to the Croatian Princess Crescimira. The devout Imre, however, has vowed to remain chaste, which means his marriage can never be consummated. It all comes to grief after the wedding, and the rejected Crescimira poisons her husband at the behest of Imre’s cousin Péter, a scheming seducer who covets both her and the throne. Meanwhile, Sebős, a courtier banished from the Kingdom after professing his pagan beliefs, joins forces with Vazul, a pagan cousin of István’s, with the intent of overthrowing both king and Christianity. István confronts the pagan rebels with an army but miraculously converts them through prayer alone. This spiritual triumph is marred by news of Imre’s assassination. Feeling his own death approaching and fearing the fate of his dynasty and Kingdom, István is consoled by visions of the country’s prosperous future.

The libretto by Antal Váradi (based on Lajos Dobsa’s drama) takes creative liberties with historical facts and even the legend based on Bishop Hertvic’s twelfth-century hagiography, the textual basis for King Stephen’s eventual canonization. But this need not concern us here.Footnote ² Rather, it is noteworthy that the 1885 version is more coherent from a purely dramaturgical point of view. It restores several subplots – most importantly the servant girl Zolna’s role in facilitating two conspiracies and Sebős’s attempted murder of István, leading him to repent and proclaim István a saint (and culminating in a more persuasive final apotheosis) – as well as the concluding incidental music that accompanies István’s visions of the future. Moreover, by giving the antagonists more depth and beautiful music, the 1885 opera generates conflicting audience sympathies, which are more satisfyingly reconciled in the final act. By comparison, the dramatic pacing and logic of the 1993 production suffers from its inherited cuts. For example, Crescimira’s poisoning of her husband is simply forgotten, and Imre meets a sticky end by other means (historically more correct but dramatically deficient). The film version actually prolongs the scene of Imre’s funeral, inserting a series of longwinded arias that kill any sense of resolution after the opera’s denouement has passed.

However, in the case of one of the most lyrical and beautiful arias in the opera, ‘Oh fönséges éj Ura’ (‘Oh Lord of the majestic night’), the comparison between the two versions is not so clear-cut. In the 1993 production the same music is sung in Act 1 to different words by the character of Crescimira, depicting the Croatian Princess as an exotic from the south; this effectively contrasts with her later music of rage, madness and grief. But in the original version this aria was given to the character of Zolna at the beginning of Act 4, as she walks through the starlit forest en route to an illicit rendezvous with her lover Sebős and his host of pagans. This too is very effective: it is this music of nature, love and liberty that makes the prospect of paganism subversively attractive – indeed, the audience may already feel some secret sympathy for Sebős, who defiantly declares himself a pagan and is punished for his beliefs. Both versions of the aria work well, but on balance the 1885 version is preferable: sympathetic treatment of the opera’s pagans and sinners creates a more complex drama and allows us to better understand today how Erkel’s music provoked its original audience.

Nevertheless, listeners today should adjust what they expect from the genre of grand opera in order to appreciate this particular work more fully. In both versions the characters are quite two-dimensional (in particular István, who is superhumanly remote), and extreme consequences follow from insufficiently dramatic causes, often relying on the audience’s familiarity with the story to justify their connection. Listeners also need to understand the different national styles Erkel used, including the few allusions to Hungarian dance genres and magyar nóta (‘Hungarian song’) and especially the preponderance of nationalist hymn-like music, for which Erkel was famous. (He is the composer of the then-unofficial national anthem, the Hymnusz, which became official in 1989.) Erkel’s historical operas often include ceremonial scenes that involve the audience as (putatively patriotic) spectators, but in István király ceremonies are even more dominant, with a very large role given to the choir. Many potentially dramatic scenes, including the ‘dialogue’ between Crescimira and Imre (which is rather a non-communicative exchange of monologues) and the confrontation between the Christians and pagans, are also rather static and ceremonial. The fragmentary and ritualistic nature of this piece can be understood in different ways, through the prism of ‘lateness’, for example, or as part of a certain modernist streak also evident in the harmony and orchestration of some of the operatic numbers (notably in the music for the wedding procession in Act 2). But Erkel did not abandon other operatic conventions, nor his penchant for Italianate arias. It is therefore helpful to understand this work as a hybrid genre that fuses grand opera with oratorio, in which an audience’s foreknowledge of a famous story allows for the portrayal of only the most essential scenes.

Historical dramas such as this one usually have a thinly veiled political message for the audience of their day, and István király clearly reflects the largely consensual yet controversial establishment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867. The architects of this new Hungary, all members of the Déak Party (from 1875 the Liberal Party), accomplished their objectives through negotiation and persuasion and were critical of the uncompromising politics that led to the failed 1849 uprising. The opera’s strong message of peaceful conversion and tolerance was entirely relevant to the political concerns of the 1880s, particularly regarding Hungary’s relations with its neighbours and its treatment of ethnic minorities. Erkel’s sympathies are clear: the purist, quasi-adolescent Christianity of Imre contrasts unfavourably with the wiser and more compassionate faith of István. It is no accident that the opera ends with a vision of the future that includes lawfulness, civic stability, economic growth and cultural prosperity as well as a vision of the newly crowned Maria Theresa, echoing the more topical coronation of her descendent, Franz Joseph, as King of Hungary in 1867. Nor is it accidental that these bits of muted liberal propaganda were removed in later versions as Hungarian politics took a more chauvinist turn, particularly after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918.

This is why no version of the opera should be overlooked in the name of authenticity or authorial intention, and why all versions, including those that may emerge in future, need to be contextualised. Pace Kassai, Erkel’s librettos cannot be ‘understood anywhere in the world’ (p. 4), not even necessarily by all Hungarians living today. István király was very much an opera of its time, and without some intensive decoding of its symbolism and use of musical materials, our ability to appreciate it, whatever our nationality may be, is much impoverished.