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A CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION BECOMES A LASTING LESSON
“all the eight operettas were highly successful”. So was Orpheus, even
though the press called the adaptation a fiasco: its subject was considered to be
outstanding and exciting, but to lack a “worthy form”.”® It was found abortive
ab ovo, since revivals and adaptations of the play, intended for political satire
by Offenbach, “had always mocked the repressive regime”, and the allegorical
form of persiflage had allowed “well-known politicians, hidden in tunics, to
be scorned in an unharmed way”.”” As critics of the Rákosi Era did not find a
repressive regime in Hungary in the early 1950s, they believed that “the author
should have said what he had to say freely, without tunic, with open helmet, in
a satire on a current subject”.”% They considered it a serious mistake that “our
writer, Comrade György Hämos, who had been honored the Kossuth Prize
by the state of the people for the creation of the first socialist operetta, the
highly successful Golden Star” did not choose this path.* The management
of the Operetta Theatre also declared the experiment “inadequate”,”™ as it
could not master the tension of the renewed libretto and the score, despite
comprehensive musical arrangement and re-orchestration.? Although the
auditorium was packed every evening, the press could not get rid of the
doctrine that “success does not always give justification, and it gives false
justification every now and again”. The creators of Orpheus, however,
gained important lessons from their misstep soon.
DRAMATIC TEXT, DRAMATURGY
Since the adaptation far exceeded the boundaries of updating, it was severely
criticized. Although the 1950 production of The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein
was a direct antecedent, the adaptors worked differently. The Grand Duchess
was about “the satirical unveiling of the ruling cliques behind ‘Napoléon le
Petit’, and social critique was enhanced to scorn today’s Napoléons”*®’ by
25
©
Rätonyi: Operett, Vol. 2, 289.
260 Antal: Orfeusz, 7.
261 Bacsó: Orfeusz, 5.
2 Ibid.
263 No author: Írói magatartás, Világosság, Vol. 9, No. 88, 128 April, 1952, 6.
264 Semsei, in Az operett kérdéseiről, 73.
Cf. Orpheus “didn’t work out at all. It was an unfortunate case. Gyuri Hámos wrote a
beautiful play, full of lovely details, but it had nothing to do with the music. Ihe music was
about the opposite. Certainly, it was our fault. We were planning a large-scale production
with the message that people wanted peace, only the arms manufacturers were instating
wars, and it was excellently written, but it was in stark contrast to Offenbach’s hot, frivolous
and perfumed music. We played it ninety-eight times [in fact eighty-four times], thanks
to the brilliant music, [...] but I hated it all along.” Sandor Venczel: Virägkor tövisekkel.
Beszélgetés Gáspár Margittal, Part 2, Színház 32:9 (1999), 39.
Speech by Béla Mátray-Betegh, in Az operett kérdéseiről, 38.
267 Antal: Orfeusz, 7.
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