Page 183 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2021. Opereta med obema svetovnima vojnama ▪︎ Operetta between the Two World Wars. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 5
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288 metres of velvet, 16 pairs of shoes, 12 yellow top hats, 5 bathtubs ...
replica of an existing production6 – it was rather an anthology of success-
ful American revue scenes mixed with newly created Hungarian ones.7 As
for the show’s title, the management chose Halló, Amerika! which indicated
the different quality of this new production. The sources do not suggest that
the show relied on explicit visual or textual propaganda about the lifestyle
or culture of the United States.8 Instead, “America” was represented only as
an abstract, exotic setting rather than the home of the American Dream.
However, between 1871 and 1913 around two million Hungarians emigrated
to the US, half of them between 1900 and 1913,9 through which numerous
members of the audience might have had already an emotional connection
to the subject. Still, the main element, which made this production “Amer-
ican”, was its style and execution. If we trust the words of writer and critic
Miklós Kállay, staging such a revue might have been a continuation of an
earlier trend, reacting to the changes in the taste of the audience:
Tonight Budapest will be once again closer to a global city [Welt-
stadt]. [...] Operettas were staged as revues lately according to the
Western trends. Since A három grácia,10 each operetta had a finale
or a sequence, which the director and the designer used to improvise
a small revue. But the first real one [...] will be Halló, Amerika! [...]
The audience is bored of middle-class lemonades and expects some
thing extraordinary. Had enough of grey, silent idylls and anae
mic sentimentalism, they want spectacular colours and loud effects.
[...] The revue is the enemy of operettas, because it can provide the
effects of operettas on exponential scales. Slim operetta plots, the
usual banalities, fake sentimental romanticism can be easily dis
6 A show titled Hullo America (with a u) by Herman Finck had already been staged (it
ran in the Palace Theatre, London from September 15, 1918, for 358 performances);
none of its music or any of the scenes were incorporated in the Budapest production.
7 “Haskell, the director of the revue compiled the show from the most effective scenes of
five American revues.” Magyarország, December 18, 1924.
8 The only exception might have been the sketch pair entitled Mönök a zamerikába –
Nem mönök a zamerikába [I’m goin’ to Theamerica – I’m not goin’ to Theamerica]
placed in the beginning and at the end of the show.
9 See Attila Z. Papp, “A nyugati magyar diaszpóra és szervezeti élete néhány demográ-
fiai, társadalmi jellemzője” [Organisation and social characteristics of the Hungari-
an Western diaspora], in Kisebbségkutatás, no. 4 (2010) based on the data of Julianna
Puskás, Kivándorló magyarok az Egyesült Államokban 1880–1940 [Hungarian emi-
grants in the US 1880–1940] (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1982).
10 Operetta by Ferenc Lehár. Adaptation of his 1916 work, Der Sterngucker. Municipal
Operetta Theatre, Budapest, June 6, 1923. Koch, A Fővárosi Operettszínház műsora,
13.
181
replica of an existing production6 – it was rather an anthology of success-
ful American revue scenes mixed with newly created Hungarian ones.7 As
for the show’s title, the management chose Halló, Amerika! which indicated
the different quality of this new production. The sources do not suggest that
the show relied on explicit visual or textual propaganda about the lifestyle
or culture of the United States.8 Instead, “America” was represented only as
an abstract, exotic setting rather than the home of the American Dream.
However, between 1871 and 1913 around two million Hungarians emigrated
to the US, half of them between 1900 and 1913,9 through which numerous
members of the audience might have had already an emotional connection
to the subject. Still, the main element, which made this production “Amer-
ican”, was its style and execution. If we trust the words of writer and critic
Miklós Kállay, staging such a revue might have been a continuation of an
earlier trend, reacting to the changes in the taste of the audience:
Tonight Budapest will be once again closer to a global city [Welt-
stadt]. [...] Operettas were staged as revues lately according to the
Western trends. Since A három grácia,10 each operetta had a finale
or a sequence, which the director and the designer used to improvise
a small revue. But the first real one [...] will be Halló, Amerika! [...]
The audience is bored of middle-class lemonades and expects some
thing extraordinary. Had enough of grey, silent idylls and anae
mic sentimentalism, they want spectacular colours and loud effects.
[...] The revue is the enemy of operettas, because it can provide the
effects of operettas on exponential scales. Slim operetta plots, the
usual banalities, fake sentimental romanticism can be easily dis
6 A show titled Hullo America (with a u) by Herman Finck had already been staged (it
ran in the Palace Theatre, London from September 15, 1918, for 358 performances);
none of its music or any of the scenes were incorporated in the Budapest production.
7 “Haskell, the director of the revue compiled the show from the most effective scenes of
five American revues.” Magyarország, December 18, 1924.
8 The only exception might have been the sketch pair entitled Mönök a zamerikába –
Nem mönök a zamerikába [I’m goin’ to Theamerica – I’m not goin’ to Theamerica]
placed in the beginning and at the end of the show.
9 See Attila Z. Papp, “A nyugati magyar diaszpóra és szervezeti élete néhány demográ-
fiai, társadalmi jellemzője” [Organisation and social characteristics of the Hungari-
an Western diaspora], in Kisebbségkutatás, no. 4 (2010) based on the data of Julianna
Puskás, Kivándorló magyarok az Egyesült Államokban 1880–1940 [Hungarian emi-
grants in the US 1880–1940] (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1982).
10 Operetta by Ferenc Lehár. Adaptation of his 1916 work, Der Sterngucker. Municipal
Operetta Theatre, Budapest, June 6, 1923. Koch, A Fővárosi Operettszínház műsora,
13.
181
