Nothing of importance happened in the musical life of Pest without the knowledge and influence of Liszt and it was he who played a prominent role in securing Hans Richter his post as Kapellmeister at the city's opera house. At the end of August 1871 he told Viktor Langer that:

Liszt's first point needs to be qualified, however, in the context of ‘musical progress’. As far as Richter was concerned, this was embodied by only one composer, Wagner. The second point was equally vital. Richter may have been a born Hungarian but his life from the age of eleven had been spent elsewhere, in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Above all it was centred on German culture, German music and the German language, not the sort of background that achieved instant popularity in Hungary. Liszt had already succumbed to Germanisation and in due course Richter and his younger colleague Arthur Nikisch would follow the same path. Nationalism and a certain degree of independence was the legacy of the 1848–49 War of Independence and of the disastrous defeats of the Habsburg Empire in 1859 by Italy and 1866 by Prussia. Opera at the National Theatre was having to contend with the Vienna Opera which lured young Hungarians away from their homeland with more lucrative contracts. The repertoire of Pest's opera house consisted mainly of German, Italian and French composers (respectively Beethoven, Weber, Wagner and Meyerbeer; Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi; Auber, Gounod and Halévy), although Hungarians were beginning to come forward with their own works, Erkel leading the way. Ferenc Erkel was also the music director of the Pest Opera and had maintained high musical standards over many years despite the poor remuneration paid to its orchestral players. He was aided in the pit by his talented sons Gyula and Sándor.