Seite 70 [70]
A CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION BECOMES A LASTING LESSON
the Vidam Theatre to be transformed into “a satirical theatre, for ‘killing by
ridiculing’, instead of playing farces”.”” Soviet literary criticism also favored
satirical literature and “Malenkov suggested at the 19" Congress of the Soviet
Party that ‘we need Soviet Gogols and [Mikhail Saltykov-]Shchedrins who
burn out of life everything that is negative, rotten and poisonous with the
fire of satire’””.””° However, several reviews disclosed that different parts of
the text in Orpheus could not be seamlessly interwoven, and although “the
components from which the author built the libretto are good in themselves,
but having been thrown together, they decrease each other’s impact and
value”.””” According to the requirement of the unit of style, the supposed
mixing of genres seemed to be problematic too: “Orpheus and Wall Street,
Offenbach and fight for peace, operetta and cabaret, heroism and our familiar
jokes from Pest”.** Although it was acknowledged that the director had
indeed had a difficult job with the revised Orpheus, Apathy’s achievement
was deemed as unsatisfying as that of Hamos.””? Decades later Margit Gaspar
declared that the management of the theatre had had no intention of giving
the production “an anti-religious tone”, but Apathy “had started a counter¬
action”: “When I saw Jupiter in a white shirt with a halo around his head at the
dress rehearsal, I started to scream and made him take it off. I was to blame
too, of course, because I hadn’t watched it before.”*°° The disappointment
about the mise-en-scène may have been increased by those phrases that
allowed as much reference to the contradictions of the Communist regime as
they advertised from its ideology.*” Obviously, “doublespeak” could not have
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a
Korossy: Szinhäziränyitäs, 102.
Peter Hämori: Gondolatok a proletkult neveteshez. Gertler Viktor Ällami äruhäza és
kora, Hitel 29:3 (2017), 73. — Source of the words by Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov:
A Központi Bizottsäg beszämolöja az SzK(b)P XIX. kongresszusänak, 1952. oktöber 5.
Budapest, Szikra, 1952, 72.
Antal: Orfeusz, 7.
298 Tbid.
2° Cf. “[...] we are not satisfied with the mise-en-scéne either. It does not have an easy job, as it
has to move a series of identical figures in an operatic Greek landscape in the first act, in a
Wall Street-Olympus cabaret in the second, and in a spectacular Underworld operetta in the
third.” Ibid.
Venczel: Virágkor, Part 2, 39.
For example, the minister of the underworld asks if Jupiter will not find out that some of
the brimstone mines are being kept from him. After all, he is omniscient. But Pluto replies,
“It’s just propaganda.” (Act 2, Scene 8) When their secret is revealed, the minister repeats,
“I told you he was omniscient!” Pluto says, “Hell, he isn’t omniscient. He’s got spies.” (Act 2,
Scene 18) When John Stix writes a petition for Jupiter, but the chief god does not respond, he
notes that he does not understand why the creator of the world is so proud when “between
us, the result is not very successful. It’s full of schematism.” (Act 3, Scene 1, 7.) When Jupiter
announces that the captured Orpheus and Eurydice will be judged by an “independent
court”, Pluto asks, “Who will that court be made up of?” And Jupiter says, “Of the two of
us.” (Act 3, Scene 2, 2.) In: Orpheus. Promptbook, Typed manuscript, Location: Budapest
Operetta Theatre. Since page numbering in the promptbook starts again per scene, the
numbers in parentheses after the citations apply to acts/scenes/page numbers.
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