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A THEATER PLAY FROM A CONCERT PIECE; POETRY AND RITUAL IN THE GESAMTKUNST WERK? It is a frequent question: how does an oratorio fit into the repertoire of a fundamentally lyrical theater, like the National Theater? I would like to answer this question using two perspectives. Our aim is the elimination of the consciously drawn borders between theatrical genres. So, the free metaphors, independent from certain artistic categories, the coequal motives and gestures can associate with each other, while the oftendisputed story is reborn in the accordance of thoughts, scenery, and musicality. Claudel and Honegger’s creation is not only music — although it is presentable as a musical composition, a concert — it is THEATER. On the other hand what bothers me and what I am thinking about is that poetic texts often become lyricized and get to stage without any music. I have already been experimenting with the usage of a new method for bringing plays and shows to the stage: combining the musicality and the idea. The Joan piece initially includes this: the beautiful synthesis of the work of a poet and a composer. Here I found everything that I myself tried to make work in my own stagings: trying to have a dialogue with music, constructing some scenes with the intention to correlate with the music, the scenery, the movements, the gestures, and the words.” Meanwhile, Vidnyanszky tries to break down all barriers between the theatrical genres, also working on using different artforms’ components together, in order to collect them all to enrich the theater’s tools and skill sets. As such, he created a piece of Gesamtkunstwerk, in which the scenery does not only serve a decorative purpose, it has become an independent, semiotic component, one that opens the gates for the theatrical arts. The director’s Gesamtkunstwerkesque intentions are tightly related to poetic and total theater: this director typology characterizes its theatrical language. As with Claudel and Honegger’s piece, Vidnyanszky’s shows are characterized by the basic criteria of the poetic theater: the consistent presence of music, the choir, the oratorio form, the word as an acoustic element in a prosaic environment, the usage of metaphors, the visionary, ballad-like storytelling, and above all: the sacral motives and the liturgical elements. This orientation of the director becomes obvious, considering the fact that Gesamtkunstwerk pieces had already been created for strengthening religious bonds and religious identity. In order to have even more effect on the audience they were incorporated in the play itself. 5 Vidnyanszky: Ibid., 9. A few years earlier, in 2007, Edmond Rostand’s drama L’Aiglon was premiered in Debrecen, Vidnyänszky talked about his views on the Gesamtkunstwerk [total work of art]: “I have always been studying just how poetry can become theater, and vice versa, how music can become a part of a theater performance’s structure, how a gesture can be on the same level as a word and how the music of the space, [music of] the text, and the connection of musicality to music can form a new synthesis, that is only possible in a theater.” Elöadäsvilägok [Worlds of Performances]: ‘L’Aiglon,’ in Istvan Kornya (ed.): A költői színház [The poetic theater], 42.
