Composer Kurtag celebrates birthday with new opera

As Hungarian Gyorgy Kurtag, who is widely considered one of the greatest living classical composers, turned 100 on Thursday, he was set to offer a one-of-a-kind birthday gift to music lovers: a brand-new opera.

- STORY: GÉZA MOLNAR AND BALAZS WIZNER / AFP

Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag.

In recent weeks, people across the globe have paid tribute to the star composer, with Budapest marking his centennial with special events, concerts and documentaries.

Later this month, the world premiere of Kurtag’s second opera Die Stechar-din about the 18th-century love story of a German polymath and a flower girl will cap the centenary of his birth.

In a rare interview with a Hungarian weekly in 2017, Kurtag confided that composing can sometimes be “painful”.

But despite being confined to a wheelchair and suffering a loss of hearing, Kurtag has lost none of his intellectual vibrancy or passion for music, according to those close to him.

“He doesn’t hear so well anymore. But in return, he feels even more, he perceives even more from the world and from music,” Concerto Budapest conductor Andras Keller said during a rehearsal of Kurtag’s new one-act opera earlier this month.