Halleluja - Oratorio Balbulum

Hungarian author Péter Esterházy compiled the libretto for this meta oratorio by his compatriot Peter Eötvös. In Halleluja, the choir, angels, a stuttering prophet and a narrator all act in full awareness of their function: ‘I am the Narrator. My chattiness is of a structural nature and therefore an unimprovable imperfection.’

Eötvös augments the work with quotations from Halleluja settings from various musical periods, including Bach’s cantata Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, Handel’s Messiah, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, as well as gospel songs and an imagined Halleluja by Béla Bartók. Ultimately, prophecies and the search for identity reveal bitter insights with allusions to the current political situation: ‘The cultural broth has become extremely diluted. Public opinion no longer exists. […] There is no future. It is at least greatly comforting that everything comes to an end – that is the long-term optimism of our oratorio.’