company. Further, it is acknowledged that Mahler's work in Budapest laid the groundwork for his best known post, that of leading the Vienna State Opera. Bluebeard's Castle Béla Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle is his most famous opera work. Initially entered into a Hungarian opera writing competition in 1911, it failed to gain popularity with the Hungarian music public. It is suggested that this is because its musical qualities were significantly different from the Italian and German opera that was at the center of Hungarian tastes, at the time. Nevertheless, Bluebeard's Castle eventually had its world premiere with the Hungarian State Opera Company in 1918, only to have the work banned in 1919 until the late 1930s, because of the forced exile of librettist Béla Balázs. Modern day The opera company today is guided under the leadership of Szilveszter Ókovács, who was appointed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The company has enjoyed significant investment from the Hungarian government in recent years, in the amount of hundreds of millions of dollars, including funds to renovate the Opera House for the first time since World War I. There has been much comparison drawn between the far right political leadership of Orban and Donald Trump in the United States, but one significant difference has been each of their approaches to governmental funding to cultural institutions. Whereas Trump attempted to significantly cut funding to the National Endowment for the Arts, Orban has both increased funding to cultural institutions, and also put in place handpicked leaders of those very institutions. Controversies In recent years, there have been at least two instances of controversy surrounding productions of the Hungarian State Opera: a production of the musical Billy Elliott that was cut short, and shortly thereafter, an all-white casting of Porgy and Bess. Billy Elliott In June 2018, 15 performances of Billy Elliott were cancelled after a right-wing, pro-Orban website published an op-ed that Billy Elliot was targeting young people, and pushing pro-homosexual propaganda. The op-ed was promptly picked up by other right wing media members, and a short while later the performances were cancelled. The opera company, however, claimed the cancellations were caused by a drop in ticket sales caused by the negative publicity, not the publicity itself. Porgy and Bess Later in 2018, Hungarian State Opera generated controversy by the announcement of a mostly all-white production of Porgy and Bess, composed by George Gershwin. Porgy and