Szeged

Szeged was rebuilt by Europe and thanks it by name. The great flood of 1879 destroyed the city almost entirely; the reconstruction, funded by the continent's capitals, produced Hungary's most harmonious cityscape — eclectic and Art Nouveau palaces on a logical ring-and-boulevard plan — and the grateful city named its ring boulevard's sections Vienna, Brussels, London, Paris, Rome and Moscow, a gazetteer of gratitude still on the street signs. At the centre rises the answer to the water: the Votive Church, the vast twin-towered cathedral pledged during the flood, whose Dóm tér forecourt becomes each summer the country's greatest stage — the Szeged Open-Air Festival, playing opera and drama to thousands under the towers since 1931. The New Synagogue nearby, Baumhorn's blue-domed masterpiece, is among the most beautiful in Europe.

Szeged's daily fame is gastronomic — the paprika of the surrounding fields and the fishermen's soup of the Tisza define Hungarian cuisine's southern school — and its university, Nobel-crowned through Szent-Györgyi's vitamin C, keeps the city young. The concert record lists the Hungarian National Symphony Orchestra at Szeged — a Budapest-based ensemble on tour, flagged for the workbook — while the city's own Szeged Symphony Orchestra and the open-air festival carry the resident tradition. Flood, gratitude, paprika and arias under the stars: Szeged repaid its debt in performances.