A Fitting Tribute to Harag György’s Centennial with Csongor and Tünde

The company had not performed this classic for nearly a year, but its revival—invited by the organizers—felt natural. The choice of play symbolically aligned with the Memorial Week’s program: the founder, director, and chief director of the Satu Mare company had himself staged Csongor and Tünde in Cluj, the city where he reached artistic maturity, and his production is still fondly remembered.

The Satu Mare production drew a large audience at the Hungarian theater in the “Treasure City.” The four-hour, three-act performance was met with long applause from a packed house. Afterwards, the Memorial Week’s guests and organizers gathered at the theater café to toast the occasion and share the master’s symbolic “birthday cake,” cut by Ilona Harag, widow of György Harag.

“Harag György’s Cluj production of Csongor and Tünde reflected the situation of young people, mostly ready to emigrate, with little hope under communism, and the fate of its worn-out figures. Today we saw a completely different production, one that will give a lot to discuss. At times it reached Shakespearean dimensions, but I would highlight just a few virtues: I haven’t seen a Csongor and Tünde in a long time where every line was clear and its poetry worked so well. I saw a tremendous artistic effort and an excellent ensemble performance. (...) Within six months, this was the Harag György Company’s second guest performance in Cluj, after the highly successful Rasputin. Both were large-scale productions, and I believe this could mark the beginning of more frequent exchanges between the two theaters,” said Gábor Tompa, artistic director of the Cluj theater.

“It was a fitting celebration in honor of our founding master. I thank the organizers and Tompa Gábor, a Harag protégé, for allowing us to perform Csongor and Tünde on this very day—in the theater where our founder’s career reached its peak and where he last staged Csongor and Tünde in 1984. Symbolically, alpha and omega, beginning and end, united in a single theatrical evening. These are the two most important theaters in György Harag’s life: Satu Mare and Cluj. As a company at the start of its directorial, managerial, and pedagogical journey—quoting Edit Kulcsár, we carry ‘György Harag’s eternal youth,’ and that is what we brought with us to the joint celebration,” said István Bessenyei Gedő, director of the Harag György Company.