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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. a 265 266 + 62 +
