Pannon Philharmonic

Singing the female leading character of the Swiss Figaro¿ production, Marion Grange and the Austrian horror opera Punch and Judy have won the first prizes at the 2014 Armel Opera Festival; the prize for the audience’s favourite went to the Punch and Judy, as well. 

The French soprano Marion Grange played the role of Suzanne at the production of the Swiss Theatre Orchestra Biel Solothurn, in Christian Henking’s Figaro¿; she won a prize of a concert at the Kodály Centre in Pécs, featuring the Pannon Philharmonic.
This year, the Armel Opera Competition and Festival, founded in 2008, in Szeged, was organised in Budapest for the first time. The productions of the Festival, contemporary operas and exiting adaptations of classical works could be seen by the audience at the Music Academy and at the Erkel Theatre. The specialty of the Festival’s concept is that the performed operas and either their leading character singers compete with each other. The prize winners are chosen by an international professional jury but also the audience can vote for their favourite opera.
The pieces could be seen and heard not only personally, the Arte Concert broadcasted all the five productions live; and on October 17, the Prize Ceremony Gala at the Thália Theatre was broadcasted by the Duna World – besides the Europe-wide popular German-French channel.