One of the great pleasures of spending time in Budapest is admiring the city’s restoration. Despite war, communism and 1956, the architecture of the city is overwhelmingly pre-World War I, and the repair of the magnificent buildings proceeds energetically to correct the neglect of the communist period. That means for example the closure of the exquisite 1884 opera house – directed for a time by Gustav Mahler – for the next couple of years.