Oldal 85 [85]
ANDRÁS MIKÓ AND GYÖRGY SZÉKELY: THE COUNT OF LUXEMBOURG, 1952
Juliettes chanson “Pierre, der schreibt an Klein-Fleurette” became Angéle’s
entrée and Fleury took Juliette’s place in her duet with Sir Basil), quite a few
numbers were completely omitted. As for the 1937 version of the operetta, six
numbers — two solos, a duet, two trios and a quintet — were cut, among them
all the new musical units of the third act, where only short reminiscences of
former songs remained. Although numerous parts of Lehar’s operetta meet
the requirements of a serious music drama as well as the genre of operetta’s
focusing on hits,*°? Rékai’s musical arrangement damaged the network of
leitmotifs created around the play and decreased the number of ensembles.
Therefore, the production of the Operetta Theatre could not shed light on the
comic opera qualities of Der Graf von Luxemburg,*™ and it got much closer to
the genre of comedy, instead of the opera.*® It gave some stars the opportunity
to shine instead of the whole company to illustrate the complexity of the
musical material.’ The Count of Luxembourg has been part of the Hungarian
tradition of playing operettas ever since in this textually enhanced but
musically mutilated form.
STAGING
Although not in a reflected and purposeful way, staging took a decisive step
towards Brechtian theatre, but it was stuck in relying on the power of the
rewritten text. Rehearsals began with watching archive footage of Paris
between 1900 and 1914 together, since the directors were interested in how
this age could be made palpable for the audience. This issue grew from the
realization that “the decades that The Count of Luxembourg is set in represent
a very specific chapter in the history of the world. They represent the era
which Comrade Lenin called the era of imperialism in his book Imperialism,
the Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1916, and this is of great importance to
363 Cf. Oliver Binder: Zwischen Karneval und großer Oper: Franz Lehärs Grafvon Luxemburg,
Program for a concert performance of Kölner Philharmonie on 5%" January 2016, 9, https://
www.koelner-philharmonie.de/media/content/veranstaltung/programmheft/2016-01-05.
pdf (accessed 22 June 2018).
Cf. Stefan Frey: Franz Lehär oder das schlechte Gewissen der leichten Musik, Tübingen,
Niemeyer, 1995, 94-122.
Margit Gaspar claimed that “the new Luxi [...] could be played without music as well”. Banos:
A színigazgató, 39.
All protagonists, except Honthy and Feleki, came off worse. Angéle and René had been
musically the most marginalized, their roles reduced almost to a second prima donna and
second bon vivant (behind Fleury and Sir Basil). They lost a solo each, a duet and a trio.
Juliette lost a solo, a duet and a trio, and Brissard a trio and a guintet. Although Basil also
lost two trios and a guintet, Feleki was amply compensated with scenes reinforced in text
and humor as well.
364
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366
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