The Heaven Holds the Earth – Elizabeth, the saint of love, is a musical about St. Elizabeth of Árpád’s House, said at the production’s press conference in Budapest on Monday. The play by Tünde Zsuffa, Sándor Lezsák and Róbert Szikora is scheduled to be shown on February 26 in Budapest. The production, under the patronage of Miklós Kásler, Minister of Human Resources, and Cardinal Péter Erdő, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, will tour the Carpathian Basin in the spring after the premiere. András Pataki, the producer of the musical, said:
According to the plans, the MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCES WILL SUPPORT THE CREATION AND TOUR OF THE PERFORMANCE WITH MORE THAN 156 MILLION HUF, AND THE MINISTRY OF MINISTRY WILL SUPPORT OVER 310 MILLION HUF.
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The author of the novel The Sky Holds the Earth, the author of the musical Zsuffa Tünde, recalled at the press conference of the production that Pope Francis highlighted two Hungarian saints at the closing mass of the International Eucharistic Congress: St. Stephen, the founder of the state, and St. Elizabeth. In the work that will teach patriotism, the writer wants to rehabilitate Queen Gertrude, whom she also presents as “the woman of love” alongside Elizabeth.
Róbert Szikora asked Zsuffa Tünde to write the story about St. Elizabeth, and then, when the novel was finished, they asked Sándor Lezsák to write the lyrics and the textbook. The Vice-President of the Parliament said that he had been dealing with the story of St. Elizabeth for twenty years, and the novel confirmed that the story had a place on the stage and wrote a textbook of the work.
Róbert Szikora, the composer of the musical, said that the idea of writing music about the life of St. Elizabeth was born in the mid-1970s when she was in and around Wartburg Castle, Thuringia. He started working on music in the 2000s, then in 2019 he asked Tünde Zsuffa to write the story, and Gábor Kiss was entrusted with arranging the piece.
Attila Dolhai, among others, will take the stage in the musical, and a selection of other roles will be organized in the second half of November. The director of the play, Péter Cseke, will be the director of the József Katona National Theater in Kecskemét, the sets will be designed by Éva Szendrényi and the costumes by Krisztina Berzsenyi. The set and costumes evoke the early 1200s, to which will be associated the “very modern music.”
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