Tag #140474 - Interview #78556 (Gyorgy Preisz)

On certain days my father’s friends gathered at our place. They loved to go to Weingruber on summer weekends. It was a huge place that could hold a thousand people, a tea-shop, and the Jozsef Nador 2nd Infantry Orchestra used to play there. I just checked where my parents were sitting and then went away immediately. I used to be right behind the conductor. I knew the whole program by heart because they played an operetta mixture at that time: Csardas Queen, The Merry Widow, Countess Marica, the Persian Market and everything. In the fall they took me to see Rigoletto at the Erkel Theater. I liked operettas very much. My parents loved Kalman, Lehar, and they took me along as well. As a child I knew everything: what was playing in which theatre. We were subscribed to the Szinhazi Elet [Theater Life] and when we had guests, they called me in, ‘Gyuri, come here, they are asking about the theater programs’ – and I knew them by heart. And I became attached to classical music, too.