Szeged Open-Air Festival stage and grandstand under construction │ Szegedify

Construction of the Szeged Open-Air Festival's – better known as Szegedi Szabadtéri – stage and grandstand, hosting Hungary’s largest open-air theater festival, started this week at Dóm Square, Szeged.

The first trucks arrived on the square on Monday morning, and very intensive work began to get everything in place for the Gift Concert on June 24, said László Barnák, director of the National Theater of Szeged and the Szegedi Szabadtéri, during a press conference at Dóm Square on Thursday.

Last year, the festival had more than 62,000 visitors. This year, they are preparing many more programs: on 37 evenings, 20 different programs will await the spectators arriving from all over Hungary.

"For me, the Szegedi Szabadtéri is the scene of life-changing stories and great encounters," said László Barnák. "I think this because of the plays that the viewers will be able to see here – Ezeregy éjszaka (One Thousand and One Nights), or Rebecca, which will also be an open-air world premiere, and István, a király (Stephen, the King) – are all great stories with twists and turns. It is a scene of great encounters because not only the viewer and the performer meet here but also creative artists, directors, actors, singers, musicians, and dancers. Every summer, more than a thousand creators and contributors are here at Dóm Square and the Újszeged stage," explained Barnák.

The 2024 season of the Szegedi Szabadtéri starts on June 24 with the traditional gift concert of the Szeged Symphony Orchestra. This evening, excerpts from the most memorable operas of Giacomo Puccini's oeuvre will be played.

On June 28, Szeged's orchestra will take the stage again, playing compositions that stretch the boundaries of classical, pop, and rock music with the now world-famous composer and pianist Peter Bence, who has given sold-out concerts in more than forty countries over the past five years.

One Thousand and One Nights, a world musical by Péter Geszti, András Monori, and István Tasnádi, will be played again on six nights during the first two weekends of July. As an open-air world premiere, Rebecca, a musical by Szilveszter Lévay and Michael Kunze, will be played on the last weekend of July and the first weekend of August. The adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's novel of the same title will be staged as the Szegedi Szabadtéri's own production. A casting was held last weekend at the National Theater of Szeged, where the future extras of Rebecca took part in an audition.

In connection with the founding of the Hungarian state – celebrated on August 20 – Levente Szörényi and János Bródy's rock opera Stephen, the King returns to Dóm Square forty years after its first performance in Szeged.

Miklós Várkonyi, the technical manager of Szegedi Szabdtéri, said that every year a complete theater is built on Dóm Square in just a few weeks, with a stage of almost two thousand square meters, a ten-meter-high grandstand with four thousand seats, light towers, and service rooms. Although this year they have a week less to finish the construction, they are making good progress, the revolving stage is currently being built, followed by the construction of the light towers and overhead machinery, while the grandstand is being completed in parallel, he added.

Preparations for Hungary's largest open-air theater festival have already begun last week at the Szabadtéri's Újszeged stage. Between June 16 and August 17, nine concerts and seven theater performances await the public in Újszeged, where, among other things, the outdated floor of the 380 square meter stage is currently being replaced.