Seite 52 [52]
MILITARIZING OPERETTA, OR THEATRE CRITICISM AS WAR PROPAGANDA
STAGING
Similarly to the first three productions of the nationalized Operetta Iheatre,
the directors of Free Wind did not come from the tradition of playing
operettas. Both Endre Marton, who staged Students of Vienna and Ihe Grand
Duchess of Gerolstein and Andor Ajtay, who was responsible for The Violet of
Montmartre, had previously worked at the Vig Theatre. (Except for a short
period at the National Theatre, Ajtay was an actor at the Vig from 1932.)
Margit Gaspar asked an acclaimed opera director and a young prosaic theatre
director to stage Free Wind. The latter, Géza Partos had started his career
at Ferenc Hont’s Fiiggetlen Szinpad (Independent Stage), then practiced his
métier at the National after the war and become chief director at the Madách
Theatre. He was co-director of Captain Bought on Tobacco, the first Soviet
operetta staged in Hungary, in the rehearsals of which Kalman Nadasdy,
metteur-en-scene of the Opera House and occasionally employed at the
National as well, also took part. Their invitation to the Operetta Theatre was
certainly due to the qualities of Free Wind and the intent to elevate the rank
of the production. The directors’ cooperation proved to be fruitful: Partos
and Nadasdy staged the adaptation of Relations, a seminal novel by Zsigmond
Moricz at the Madach Theatre a year later. The temporary employment of the
directors of the Vig, the National and the Opera came up to Margit Gaspar’s
expectations and resulted in a considerable increase in standards. In case
of Free Wind there ensued “a demanding production” “that was worthy of
eliminating or knocking down the walls and barriers that still existed between
so-called light and serious genres”.!?°
While reviews usually referred to the mise-en-scéne with no more than
an adjective at that time, not only did critics of Free Wind emphasize the
“momentum and persuasive power of the work of Nädasdy and Pärtos,
unique on the Hungarian operetta stage”,'*' but also recorded what caused
this “revolutionary breakthrough”.'* Most of all, “the harmonious unity of
music and prose”, the meticulous elaboration of dialogues stressing the
through-line of action and their fusion with musical parts, gaining dramatic
force. Furthermore, the integration of all elements and their subordination
to the concept of the production, which critics called “attentiveness to every
detail”,'** and last but not least intense working with the actors. The latter
resulted in truly collective work, i.e. the development of an ensemble
180
Apathy, Sz6vetségi vita, 15.
181 L.J.: Szabad szél, 6.
182 Speech by István Horvai, Szövetségi vita, 25.
183 Tóth: Szabad szél, 7.
184 Mátrai-Betegh: Szabad szél, 5.