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A REFASHIONED IMAGE OF REVOLUTION AS MUSICAL THEATRE Theatre and the College of Theatre and Film Arts. “As a result of its activities, the first youth performance, The Young Guard, intended to be a sample, was staged in the Magyar Theatre, chamber of the National.”*) The starting point for the creation of Students of Vienna, a three-act romantic grand operetta was Karoly Obernyik’s political farce from 1848, “the best comedy of the war of independence”.** A Hungarian Emigrant in the Vienna Revolution was performed only once in Pest on 15" June, 1849, and it came out in print in 1878, nearly thirty years later. The working community borrowed only a few figures and places from the play and moved the plot ina different direction. The protagonist of A Hungarian Emigrant is Torlai, the rich landowner, “full of weakness”, but having “a beautiful, enthusiastic daughter, as beautiful as the idea of freedom”, * and the play follows his adventures. There is also a subplot of love between Torlais daughter, Klára and Ödön, a member of the Legion of the Vienna Academy but this subplot is subordinated to Torlai’s adventures. In contrast, Students of Vienna concentrates on young people and revolutionary events, with the love complication made more emphasized, according to the genre of operetta.** Not so much between Gabor and Erzsike (to whom Odén and Klara were transformed), but rather between >! Korossy: Szinhäziränyités, 362. — The Young Guard (written from a novel by Alexander Fadeyev) premiered on 154 March, 1949, directed by Tamas Major. “The planned work of dramaturgs’ working communities in theatres was mainly aimed at creating new Hungarian dramatic literature.” Ibid. Ferenc Kerényi: Színjátszás a polgári forradalomban &s a szabadsägharc idejen (1848-1849), in Ferenc Kerényi (ed.): Magyar szinhaztörtenet 1790-1873, 362. Karoly Obernyik: Magyar kivandorlott a bécsi forradalomban, in Ferenc Kerényi (ed.): Szinmüvek 1848-1849-böl. A magyar drama gyöngyszemei, Vol. 9, Budapest, Unikornis, 1999, 142. — Obernyik's farce was set on stage only once in the 20th century. Reworked by Levente Osztovics, with music by Ferenc Darvas and lyrics by Szabolcs Varady, the musical comedy premiered at the Theatre of Nyiregyhaza at the beginning of the 1989-90 season as Turmoil in Vienna and was directed by Andras Schlanger. The history of Obernyik’s farce is vividly summed up — with emphases of the 1950s — by Béla Osvath’s essay (Szinészetiink és dramairodalmunk helyzete a szabadságharc idején, Irodalomtérténet 43:4 [1955], 465-484): “Since Tarlai [correctly: Torlai], a wealthy Hungarian who fled to Vienna before the revolution, is a comic character, he gets into a whole series of comic situations. Tarlai hates the revolution and he is going to Vienna with his daughter because he believes that the revolution cannot reach the emperor’s city. He looks for calm but finds upheaval. He asks one of his relatives, Ödön, who lives in Vienna, to get an apartment for him. Odôn is a Jacobin-like revolutionary official with close connections to the university youth of Vienna. When Tarlai learns that Odén has become a revolutionary, he no longer wants to stay with him. He drives to his apartment but tumbles into the protesting people and his carriage is knocked over and used as a barricade. The old man gets stuck in his carriage and incidentally hears the conversation of two Austrian officers, who want to attack ‘the aula’ by art. Tarlai believes that ‘the aula’ means the royal court and not the association of revolutionary youth in Vienna, and is outraged by the evil way in which the imperial court is under siege. He fantasizes about how to save the imperial house, when he hears some young people talking about the protection of ‘the aula’ by all means. He tells them his great secret, the plan of the imperial officers, and thus he promotes the victory of the revolutionary youth in Vienna against his will.” (480). + 28 +
