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OCR
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.
