Oldal 44 [44]
MILITARIZING OPERETTA, OR THEATRE CRITICISM AS WAR PROPAGANDA
beginning of 1948 and June 1949, the Operetta Theatre, still led by Szabolcs
Fényes, came up with a new production almost every month, some of which
were remarkable (Ball at the Savoy, La Belle Héléne, Rip van Winkle), but none
of them could be played as long as they deserved because of the press attack
on their genre. In contrast, the nationalized Operetta Theatre held only four
premieres in the 1949-50 season, which were all successful — e.g. Students
of Vienna with 96 performances and The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein with
130 -, but the “official assessment” labeled the first three unsuccessful to
highlight the fourth, stating that on the way to Free Wind, “the company had
significantly evolved both politically and artistically”.'”” So Free Wind was
seen, on the one hand, as evidence of the nationalized Operetta Theatre’s
capacity for development," and on the other, an important stage of progress
in the field of musical theatre in Hungary.'” The performance proved to be
decisive and meant an acquittal for the genre of operetta, which had come
under fire in previous years, silencing those “who claimed that ‘operetta was
doomed’”.'”° At the same time, a systematic campaign was launched in the
press to legitimize Free Wind and its renewed genre in socialist theatre culture
and reviews of the production virtually outlined a thorough briefing.
The main argument (1) was that in its Hungarian production, Dunayevsky’s
work “restores the credibility of operetta”,’”’ as it eliminates all the flaws of
revue-operettas, which — according to the story constructed for the genre in the
1940s — had taken advantage of the corruption of Viennese operetta and flooded
stages between the world wars. “If operetta is the daughter of opera — the music
critic of the daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet argued -, jazz operetta is at best
the sluttish daughter of opera”, but it is cleansed now by Soviet operetta, which
leads her back to “the source, to opera”.'”? When ideologues of the Hungarian
123 A múlt színházi évad vázlatos értékelése, 15. — Béláné Fogarasi (wife of the philosopher who
laid the foundations of Marxist logic) evaluated the productions similarly. “After a promising
start” (Students of Vienna) “the new Operetta Theatre went on the wrong track” when
modernizing Offenbach’s operetta, and The Violet of Montmartre “proved to be a cul-de-sac.”
But “it has recently reached the height of artistic work with Dunayevsky’s operetta”. Bélané
Fogarasi: Szabad szél. Bemutató a Fővárosi Operettszínházban, Fórum 5:7 (1950), 483.
Both critics and theatre people agreed on it. Cf. "Ihe Operetta Theatre has achieved much
more in only one year in genre and production alike than any other theatre in Budapest."
Speech by László Keleti, Szövetségi vita, 11. -— "Among redevelopments of all kinds,
making the cultural life of Budapest more beautiful and enriched in this season, perhaps
the refashioning of the Operetta Iheatre is considered to be the most daring, the most
courageous." Fogarasi: Szabad szél, 483.
Cf. "When we caught up with the Soviet Union during the development of our theatre
culture, Free Wind was produced after Captain Bought on Tobacco". István Fejér: Három
tengerész és egy súgó, Színház és mozi, Vol. 3, No. 22, 11" June, 1950, 26.
Gáspár: A könnyű műfaj kérdései, 3.
István Szenthegyi: A Szabad szél zenéje, Magyar Nemzet, Vol. 6, No. 109, 12"! May, 1950, 5.
28 Tbid.
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