Elisabeth in Budapest, 4th and 6th of January 2008: a review

[Valancy]

Here is my review of Elisabeth in Budapest. Long, as my reviews have a tendency to be.

I saw Elisabeth three times, once on Friday and twice on Sunday. (Yes, I know I’m crazy.) According to the original cast lists, I was supposed to see every actor in the cast at least once. But Operettszínház had a flu wave or something, and there were several cast changes in the performances I saw. I didn’t see Janza Kata at all, but had Vágó Bernadett twice instead. Máté (you know, Máté Kamarás of the Vienna DVD fame who is their 2nd Death now) was sick and not performing and Szilveszter did every show, that means six shows from Thursday night to Sunday night. I didn’t exactly object to seeing Szilveszter three times, but it’s a real pity for all those who would have liked to see Máté. I also saw Dolhai Attila as Rudolf only once instead of twice as supposed to.



In general, I loved the production. It’s not perfect, and to enjoy it one definitely shouldn’t expect it to be like the Vienna production or indeed any other production either, but that’s not a problem for me. I love seeing different interpretations of this musical, and while none so far have felt perfect for me, each has something special and each works in its own way.

Though I don’t really like the sets, in general I like the dreamlike quality about the way this production looks. I guess that is a combination of the lighting, some costumes, Death’s appearance and the fact that the sets anyway look fairly symbolic and suggestive rather than too realistic. I also mostly like the direction, and the way the characters’ relationships come across. The script of the Hungarian version is as it has been from 1996: compared to the original Vienna production, it also includes the scenes that were later added to the Dutch (e.g. revised 1st act Finale, Bellaria and the Rudolf conspiracy scene), but lacks the later additions such as the Kind oder nicht scene and Wenn ich tanzen will. They do what looks like the set-up to Wenn ich tanzen will with Death appearing in the end of the Éljen scene, but it just goes on to Mama wo bist du. I wish they had added Wenn ich tanzen will, but can’t help it. On the other hand, it has the extra Death song in the first act, called Útvesztö minden út (Every Road is a Maze) and sung when he first meets Elisabeth. I used to find the song strange, but nowadays I like it and am not at all bothered by it, especially since I like the way it’s acted out in the Hungarian version. I could do without some of the added explanatory bits here and there during the musical, but they don’t bother me too much, except maybe Lucheni’s lines before Bellaria which don’t seem to have much of a point.



There’s a lot more ensemble on stage in some scenes than there is in other productions, but mostly I wasn’t too bothered by this. I found that they were often used in ways which added something to the scenes – perhaps not something necessary, but something that works for me as one way of doing it. Sometimes the large numbers of people on stage combined with the sets made it difficult to find the main characters, though, which is not so good. So sometimes fewer people would have been better. I wish they had more often used the kind of solutions they used in Rudolf scenes, ie. relatively empty stage, lighting clearly focused on main characters and a beautifully threatening, nocturnal mood, and only set pieces and props that served some function.



Like I said, the stage design could have been better; while I still could enjoy the musical much, it would be even better with different sets. These are too busy and not very beautiful, there’s too much stuff on stage and most of the time it doesn’t really seem to serve any function. And the symbolism doesn’t work for me as well as it does in the Vienna sets. There were still some staging decisions that I like, such as the Rudolf scenes, Totenklage (mirrors haunting Elisabeth and making her break down), and Elisabeth wandering through the sets during Ich gehör nur mir which gave to me a sense of passage of time and her thinking about things. And at least I like the fact that the stage design is not trying to look entirely realistic. But I would have preferred more empty stage and less stuff.



The ensemble scenes were often well done: I simply loved Die Fröliche Apokalypse (I thought I was going to miss the cars but I didn’t, the choreography worked very well), Milch was great, Éljen was a bit too full of people but otherwise good; and after having to sit ten times through the absolutely horrible Finnish version of Nur kein Genieren, I can’t tell you what a delight it was to see a version of that scene that was actually fun and not annoying. Also, this is probably my favourite version of Der Hass, the least annoying version of it, and I like that they tie it more tightly to the Rudolf story by having him come in at the end, shouting “No!” and being derided by the people, after which he goes onto Wenn ich dein Spiegel wär.



The best thing about this production is definitely the cast. Especially when combined with how much I loved all the actors in Vámpírok Bálja, I’m just amazed by where the Hungarians find these people. Everyone is an excellent actor and singer, and while some are better in their roles than others, nobody is bad or terribly annoying. I’m used to there being at least one actor in any cast who I don’t like, but this never happened here. And the characters feel real. Also the ensemble were great with their singing and acting skills.

A character-by-character review of the cast:


Elisabeth - I had Vágó Bernadett twice, Füredi Nikolett once. Both were wonderful. I saw Bernadett when I should have seen Kata, but I wasn’t disappointed, which says something. I still wish I had seen Kata, but Bernadett was very enjoyable. She has great, lovely voice and her acting is really good. She was particularly delightful as the young Elisabeth: spirited, wild and energetic without appearing silly or stupid. She felt real, and from a spirited, dreamy girl she then had to grow up to a woman who was capable of defending her own, and did this well. I loved her fire in the scenes where she defied Franz-Joseph or Death. At the same time she had a nicely flirtateous attitude towards Death. The one complaint I might have is that she was perhaps too sweet and adorable – I like seeing also more of Elisabeth’s dark side, of the way she closes herself off of other people and goes too far in her quest for independence. Not to say that Bernadett didn’t have these at all, she made the story work well enough, but still more would have been good. On a final positive note, I simply loved how she and Szilveszter performed Der Schleier fällt together, it was so beautifully emotional and full of longing about to be fulfilled.



I saw Nikolett on my second time, in between the two shows with Bernadett. I loved Nikolett even better, mainly because her interpretation was closer to how I’ve wanted to see Elisabeth. She was also a good young Sisi, perhaps slightly darker than Bernadett’s, and she was wonderfully determined, strong and independent. But she also had Elisabeth’s dark sides better, that tendency to retreat into coldness, independence going too far, and a touch of madness. I like seeing these in Elisabeth and also they’re important things for her character arc. I also adored how very attracted to Death her Elisabeth seemed to be. And there were countless of little details that made her Elisabeth feel right and very real to me.



On a minus side, while Nikolett has a really beautiful voice, it’s a bit too operatic at times. She seems to have trouble controlling her register changes so that you don’t notice it, and the highest notes (especially the highest notes of Ich gehör nur mir) are noticeably in a different sort of voice from the rest of the song. If she learns to control this, she will be amazing. But I loved her much already. And she’s very beautiful. So is Bernadett, but Nikolett resembles the real Elisabeth more.



Death - Szabó P. Szilveszter each time. While it would have been interesting to also see Máté, I’m not complaining because Szilveszter was fantastic. He was even better than I hoped, and he’s very much how I most want to see Death played. On the one hand he really, definitely feels like Death, he feels supernatural and otherwordly, and he feels like Elisabeth and Rudolf’s shadow side and personal demon. On the other hand, he is emotional and passionate and it keeps erupting from under the cold shell he tries to retain. He’s wonderfully dark, sarcastic and dangerous, and at the same time attractive and sympathetic. He’s got depth and intelligence. While on the one hand he keeps trying to get Elisabeth to himself, at time he seems to almost revere her, not quite knowing how to approach her. I will let this explain why his stage kisses don’t look all that interesting. ;)



He is as beautiful as anything I can hope for, and the Hungarian Death look and make-up work fantastically on him. And something has happened to his voice and he’s learned to sing much better than before. I always wrote him off as someone with a voice that’s okay but nothing that good, but now I also found myself liking his singing voice – it had a lot of softly enticing charm, and it was very expressive.



He is also significantly crazier and more fierce as Death than he has been in earlier years. This craziness was particularly evident on Sunday – perhaps he needed to work himself to a manic mood to survive doing so many performances one after another – but there was some of it on Friday, too. Actually, one of the things that I love about him is that while I saw him three times, he was not quite the same in any two performances. And while he’s been playing the part since 1996, he doesn’t feel like it – he still feels fresh in it, not like it’s becoming a routine to him. I also have to commend him on managing to do all the performances in Máté’s absence and still succeeding in being excellent and sounding good and not seem like he was getting tired. He did look like he might fall asleep on his feet in the end bows of the last show, though.



Lucheni - Földes Tamás twice, Száraz Tamás once. Both were good, though interpretation-wise I preferred Száraz. He is more of a young, rash, crazy anarchist I picture Lucheni as, whereas Földes comes across as too middle-aged and respectable. Földes has a very good voice, though, and he’s a good actor and was fairly energetic on Sunday afternoon. But Száraz was not just energetic, he was bouncy. He seemed to have so much fun in the role, and he had quite a charisma, somehow I could hardly look away from him when he was on stage. He had a really good voice, too, and was very cute. To illustrate the difference between his and Földes’s Luchenis, Földes’s attitude to Death seems to be “Ever your loyal servant, Master Death” where as Száraz’s is more like “OMG Death, you’re the coolest and shiniest and so freaking awesome! Will you like me if I give you pictures of your ladylove? No? Are you sure?” Which created a fun contrast with Szilveszter’s Death (who then is all “Shut it already, stupid fanboy”).



Franz-Joseph - Bereczki Zoltán twice, Bálint Ádám once. Zoltán’s my favourite. He’s the only Franz-Joseph so far I have seen who has really managed to make the character interesting and give him some real character development. In the beginning he is very much controlled by his mother, turning to her advice in everything, even when it hurts him to follow it (like with the rebel’s mother). Gradually he takes her opinions in so well that he becomes hard and cold also towards his wife’s needs, and for quite some time in the 1st act you want to smack him and Elisabeth’s annoyance is definitely justified. But by the end of the first act he has realised that he has to make a decision now, he can’t just follow his mother forever if it threatens to take Elisabeth away from him, and you see him make that decision and grow up, and then you so much want him to get something good as a result, and you feel sorry that he doesn’t end up getting what he wanted and what he defied his mother for. And he feels so dejected in Boote in der Nacht, still seems to love her but is just not the person she can love, and you feel sorry for both.



In comparison, Bálint Ádám had maybe a better voice, and he was also cute, but acting-wise I preferred Zoltán. Not that Ádám was bad, he was fairly sympathetic, but he was quite a bit more forgettable – more like your standard FJs, I’m afraid. And he didn’t have as many nuances to his acting. He’s very new to the role, though, so perhaps he’ll be better when he gets more into it.



Sophie - Molnár Piroska twice, Nádasi Veronika once. Piroska was all right, I liked her, though better on the first time when I hadn’t yet seen Veronika. Piroska is maybe not the best Sophie ever, but she works. She did a decent balance between a bossy matriarch and someone who was still sympathetic deep down. But she perhaps did the character a bit too caricature-like. She doesn’t look right for the part, but it’s not her fault.

But Veronika was fantastic. She’s very young for the part, and they don’t do old people make-up too well there, which was a bit annoying, but she was still great. Her Sophie was a personality who felt real, and while she was cold and harsh, you could also see that it was something she had taught herself to be because she believed it to be necessary. And so her Bellaria really felt true, and she felt so beautifully human in it. She played excellently with Nikolett, their Eine Kaiserin muss glänzen was the best I’ve seen, wonderfully intense and really set up the conflict and rivalry between the two women – while at that point you mainly sympathised with Elisabeth, you could see that Sophie wasn’t pure evil either and did what she thought best. Veronika has a great voice, too, really the sort of voice I like to hear in this role.



Rudolf - Dolhai Attila once, Szabó Dávid twice. Attila was a good Rudolf as I expected: good voice, good acting, nice chemistry with Szilveszter. Had both spine and vulnerability and nice nuances to his acting. I liked him a lot.

However, I was even better impressed by Dávid, perhaps because I didn’t know at all what to expect of him. He was an excellent Rudolf. He had that wonderful combination of delicacy and fire, you could see that he had will to do something but at the same time not the strength to deal with what was coming for him. Beautifully tempted by darkness even as he tried to keep away from it. He had an excellent chemistry with Szilveszter, even though they don’t normally play together, and I think I saw the best Die Schatten werden länger I’ve ever seen. Mindblowing. He agonized so wonderfully in Spiegel, too. He had a good, clear voice, and he was very cute.



Other notes: had good young Rudolfs, especially one of the Sunday ones who acted really sweetly and convincingly. Márik Péter was a good Max each time I saw him. And I must give a special honorary mention to Náray Érika as an absolutely adorable Ludovika/Frau Wolf. She was so charming I could hardly take my eyes off her, and she played both roles well. Her Frau Wolf flirted adorably with Lucheni, and her voice is great.

[Valancy]

The Hungarian production of Tanz is amazing. There are some videos on YouTube if you search for Vámpírok Bálja. The cast is great, especially Géza Egyházi as Von Krolock is amazing. And the production looks absolutely gorgeous, the stage/costume designer is a genius...

I'm very anxious to get to travel again so I might see musicals. I doubt I'll be able to afford Berlin before Elisabeth leaves the city, but maybe I'll see the tour somewhere. And I really, really want to get to Budapest again. I'm already feeling anxious knowing that Elisabeth will soon be playing there again and I won't be there - and that meanwhile all those wonderful actors are also appearing in other things. Thank goodness for YouTube, but it's most definitely not the same thing...

[Nikki]

Thanks for filling me in on the translation and language barrier etc!
I haven't checked out the Hungarian production of Tanz yet I'd really like to though
I'm hoping to make a trip to Berlin in August to see Elisabeth there (I adore Pia so am quite excited over the chance of possibly seeing her!)
If it becomes possible I'd like to make a short trip to Budapest as well. Probably in September or something depending on what's playing. I've heard nothing but good reports from people who have been there and it's only adding to my temptation :)

[Valancy]

No, I haven't seen it live before. Only by other means. ;) Probably this production will run for quite long. The theatre was full each time and the musical is still very popular. And they've only just opened the new version last summer. In Budapest they usually perform their musicals in short runs with breaks in between. Some musicals they perform a few days every month, Elisabeth they currently seem to perform a few days every 2-3 months - probably because it's been running for so long that they don't want to wear it out when they've got many newer musicals as well. The next time for Elisabeth will indeed be in late April - which is also a week when R&J will be running, so I think I'll just try to forget the existence of Budapest then. :P

The theatre always has translations above the stage for all musicals. For musicals in English, for operettas in German. Not all theatres in Budapest do this, we didn't have any translations in Tanz.

I saw Elisabeth and Tanz der Vampire when I was in Budapest. Tanz was excellent, very much recommended. It was my first trip to Budapest so I haven't had a chance to see other musicals on stage yet, but I have seen a few on DVD.

The locals in touristy places mostly speak enough English that you can get around without speaking Hungarian. I tried to speak a little Hungarian, but it wasn't such a good idea because then they imagined I really speak it and started saying complicated things I couldn't understand. :P

[Nikki]

Had you seen this production before? I've read somewhere that Máté may be doing shows in April so it must still be running until at least then
You mentioned translations in the theatre, they had them for Elisabeth? I've heard that certain shows have translations but am unsure which has what.
Btw have you seen/heard any other Hungarian musicals? I know they've done Anna Karenina for example, I'm quite curious about that one and hope to find out more about it soon enough
Did you find it difficult at all to get around without being able to speak the language?
If I got the chance to go I'd love to be able to see both Elisabeth and Romeo and Juliet.. at least lol

[Valancy]

I hope that the current production will run for some time and you'll get a chance to see it, too. I already dream of going back there and seeing it again, I miss it...

Bernadett and Szilveszter worked amazingly well together considering they've hardly played together. I also adored Nikolett to bits. They've both got such a fangirl in me now. Would be interesting to see how Bernadett and Máté work together.

I've seen a translation of Útvesztö minden út somewhere, but I can't remember where. I could consider writing a direct translation, though I don't know if it would be very good as my Hungarian isn't that great. But I do think I've got a decent idea of what it means and the translations I've seen (including the one in the theatre) didn't contradict that...

[Nikki]

Great review!
It's made me want to see it even more :)
I hope that happens someday, particularly with the current cast
I really like what I've heard about Bernadett and would love to see her opposite both Szilveszter and Máté (Must mention the Hungarian Death costumes too.They are awesome and are my overall favorite!)
Útveszto Minden út is a lovely song and I'd like them to add it to the German language productions, unfortunately it seems kinda unlikely. Do you know if there is any translations to it out there?
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts