The opera world says farewell to Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös
Opera theaters and classical music media around the world say goodbye to Peter Eötvös. The composer, conductor and music teacher passed away on March 24 at the age of 80.
It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Péter Eötvös (1944-2024), one of the most influential composers of our time. His last opera, ”Valuska” premiered recently, in December 2023, commissioned by #OperaBudapest. His memory and legacy will live on forever – Hungarian State Opera has posted farewell to the composer on X, formerly Twitter.
In its goodbye message the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden notes that Peter Eötvös was particularly interested in musical theater, which he enriched with a number of works that were intellectually and compositionally challenging but at the same time accessible… The cultural world has lost an artist who made an admirable contribution to contemporary music, with an intuitive sense of diverse moments of sound and expression, as well as musical-dramatic credibility and truthfulness.
Ruch Muzyczny writes on X: He was an unrivaled interpreter of new music, a valued composer, one of the most important creators of contemporary opera music.
Forum Opera, a French magazine on classical music, recalls the most important opera works by Péter Eötvös: …the first “Three Sisters”, premiered in Lyon in 1998 and immediately became an important work. Other titles include “Le Balcon” (2002), “Angels in America” (2004), “Lady Sarashina” (2007) and “Sleepless” (2021), staged two years ago in Geneva.