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A REFASHIONED IMAGE OF REVOLUTION AS MUSICAL THEATRE
the significant extra income of the Varosi. From that we had already supported the capital’s
prosaic theatre, the Belvarosi Theatre. But it was also needed for the Magyar Theatre!” (Tibor
Banos: A szinigazgaté, Typed manuscript, 7. Location: The Hungarian Theatre Museum and
Institute, Margit Gaspar’s heritage, 01.64.2011.) Gaspar was working at the press office of
the town hall after World War II. In 1947-48 she became manager of the Magyar Theatre,
where Hervé’s Lili (with Gizi Bajor and Jänos Särdy) as well as Spring Sounds soon became
hits. After the Magyar Theatre was annexed to the National, she was invited to set up an
operetta studio at the College of Theatre and Film Arts, “where young talents learn not only
how to sing, dance and present themselves, but also how to portray people in an authentic
way.” (Ibid., 13.) The first Soviet operetta staged in Hungary, Captain Bought on Tobacco
by Nikolai Aduyev and Vladimir Shcherbakov was finally staged as an exam at the Magyar
Theatre on 9" June, 1949, when it was the chamber theatre of the National.
We are only a few months after the “forced vote” on 15" May, 1949, when only one list could
be voted on and the candidates of the Hungarian Independence People’s Front (headed by
Matyas Rákosi) won 95-969 with a 95% turnout. (Cf. György Gyarmati: A Rákosi-korszak.
Rendszerváltó fordulatok évtizede Magyarországon, 1945-1956, Budapest, ABTL — Rubicon,
2011, 138.) The series of arrests that started the Rajk case began on the day after the one-list
election. When the actors were rehearsing the songs of Students of Vienna, the parliament
of the People’s Front adopted the country’s new constitution, which came into force on 20"
August, 1949. The preamble declared that Hungary “has begun to lay the foundations of
socialism, and our country is advancing towards socialism on the path of people’s democracy
with the support of the Soviet Union". Gyarmati: A Rákosi-korszak, 139.
“Verdicts were returned in accordance with Rakosi’s instructions, agreed in Moscow in
advance. László Rajk, Tibor Szőnyi and András Szalai were sentenced to death and executed.
Lazar Brankov and Pál Justus were sentenced to life in prison, and Milan Ognyenovich was
sentenced to nine years in prison. To make the conspiracy to overthrow the state order with a
military force more credible, the cases oftwo other generals, György Pálffy and Béla Korondi,
also communists, were transferred to the court martial. Ihey were sentenced to death there
a few days later." (Gyarmati: A Rákosi-korszak, 153.) "In the related so-called background
lawsuits — 30 more — more than 100 civilians and military officers were put behind bars.
Of these, 15 were executed, 11 sentenced to life in prison and more than 50 to more than
five years in prison. Several fled to suicide, others died as a result of brutal interrogations or
after conviction in prison. And those against whom not even a weak indictment could be put
together were interned for an unpredictable period of time.” Ibid., 155. — In view of all this,
some passages of the libretto, such as the second act’s espionage burlesque or the comment
of Torlai, released from prison, have an eerie effect: “I was interrogated. They were listening
and I was wailing. I’m blue and green from all that, my body looks like an orographic map.”
(Bécsi diakok. Promptbook, Typed manuscript, 58. Location: Budapest Operetta Theatre.)
What certainly provoked laughter with Kalman Latabar’s comic accents was a painful reality
at 60 Stalin Road, a few hundred meters away.
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