Budapest performance gets a shot in the arm…
Don’t ever let it be said that Iván Fischer hasn’t done his bit to promote vaccination against Covid-19. Without missing a beat, the conductor took off his jacket midgershwin during an open-air concert in Budapest and, with a hole already cut in his shirt sleeve, received his third jab.
Several members of Fischer’s Budapest Festival Orchestra (BFO) also took Covid-19 tests while on stage. ‘Iván Fischer wants to further raise awareness of the need for vaccination,’ explained the BFO’S managing director, Orsolya Erdodi. ‘Vaccination can give us the chance to live and work a normal life again, just as we did before.’ At the time of going to press, around 55 per cent of Hungary’s population has been fully vaccinated.