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A REFASHIONED IMAGE OF REVOLUTION AS MUSICAL THEATRE
the “operetta-kitsch” because of “rooting the faith of the eternity of the
feudal-capitalist order in the spectators of the oppressed class, [...] paralyzing
them into idle waiting for the jackpot” and “assisting in the atomization of the
masses”, the revolutionary story wanted to act against it. Although Students
of Vienna relied on an old comedy and music of the Strauss family, it was a
new play, and producing new Hungarian plays was encouraged by cultural
officers of the Party as much as the premieres of Soviet plays. In spite of its
forced revolutionism, the production was characterized by the mood of the
belle époque, but Students of Vienna was indeed the beginning of a “new era”.**
Not only did it become a pillar of the three-way program structure of the
nationalized Operetta Theatre,* but it also launched the institution managed
by Margit Gaspar to become the Hungarian counterpart of Komische Oper
(the best musical theatre in the Eastern Bloc, founded by Walter Felsenstein
in 1947), focusing on the genre of operetta, certainly politically justified,
instead of opera.
DRAMATIC TEXT, DRAMATURGY
Playwriting in the spirit of collective authorship did not intend to Sovietize
operetta, but to create a “sound comedy” full of great roles for renowned
actors." Since Margit Gáspár had only six weeks to create the opening
performance after the nationalization of the theatre in the summer of 1949,
she decided to write a libretto collectively and to fill it with available music
was about to achieve the — unfulfilled — objectives of 1848. [...] The politically motivated
reinterpretation of 194 century events was carried out and directed by József Révai, chief
ideologist of the communist party. The first and last points of the political catechism he
produced on the subject sum up the essence of this updated salvation history. 1848 must be
listed as a precursor to Hungarian people’s democracy. [...] The working class, united with the
peasantry, completes the work of 1848 and leads the country towards socialism on the path
of a peoples democracy." Gyarmati: A Rákosi-korszak, 120—121.
Gáspár: Az operett, 9—10.
In the first season following the nationalization of theatres (1949-50), eight new Hungarian
dramas were played, only two of which “dealt with the events of the national past”. Korossy:
Szinhäziränyitäs, 102.
Fejer: Kapunyitäs, 6.
On the one hand, “new operettas had to be created”. On the other hand, “serious achievements
had to be showed: first and foremost, the operetta culture of the Soviet Union and all that
can be linked to it, i.e. musical plays of the people’s democracies”. Thirdly, “it was necessary
to show in exemplary productions not only the classics of Hungarian operetta but those of
the world as well”. Semsei, in Az operett kérdéseiről, 3.
According to Margit Gaspar, the Operetta Theatre showed plays condemned as “utterly
bourgeois in a completely different way” between 1949 and 1956. Old plays were rewritten
“without [...] vulgarizing them to party principles. They were transformed into well-made,
sound comedies instead.” Venczel: Virägkor, Part 1, 16.
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