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MILITARIZING OPERETTA, OR THEATRE CRITICISM AS WAR PROPAGANDA
lines and sinuous shapes. Then the sailors’ bar, addressed to the Seventh
Heaven, with massive vaults, a fishing net and lampions high above and an
illuminated mermaid as a decoration at the top of the bar. Zoltan Fiilop’s
sets, creating a “spacious, cozy frame” for each scene,”** and Tivadar Mark’s
costumes, matching all characters and becoming slightly exaggerated only
on figures involved in intrigues, gave nice examples of “operetta realism”,
mentioned at the professional discussion of the production, though not clearly
defined. In addition, lighting was highly appreciated as an essential element
of scenography, which had operatic richness too, but lacked ostentation and
fully served the mise-en-scéne. So did dance, culminating in the wedding
preparation of the second finale, and full of movements proving that “operetta
was suitable for bringing folk dances to the stage”.”*° Free Wind was Agnes
Roboz’s thesis project in choreography at the College of Theatre and Film
Arts, and concerning dances in an operetta, she really made a difference in
the production, even though the initiative was already there in Students of
Vienna. According to her distinction, “songs were followed by dance [in the
past], regardless of the lyrics, the essence of the songs and their participants.
It was a necessary and inevitable constituent. On the other hand, it was a
separate show performed by a team of boys and girls."?" However, this “dull
group no longer shows off, but the people dance and look into their future
with joy and confidence”.*®’” That’s why she considered the “appearance of folk
dance on our operetta stage” so significant, and gave many fine examples of it
in later productions of the Operetta Theatre.”**
IMPACT AND POSTERITY
Despite the fact that the adaptation made Dunayevsky’s play as effective
as the operettas of Lehar and Kalman a few years later, Free Wind did not
become part of the standard repertory of Hungarian theatres, unlike the new
versions of The Count of Luxembourg and The Csdrdds Princess. According
to the statistics of the Ministry of Culture, Free Wind was performed
87 times in 1950 and 22 times in the next three years for a total of 74,563
spectators.”” Ihe production had completed the endeavor to stage nine new
Soviet plays (plus two revivals) in the prosaic theatres of Budapest in the
234 Matrai-Betegh: Szabad szél, 5.
35 Székely, Szövetségi vita, 5.
Speech by Ágnes Roboz, Szövetségi vita, 19.
237 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
239 The National Archives of Hungary, MNL OL XXXII. 20.
19
236
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