With deep sadness we announce that tragically suddenly an opera was born from Jean Genet’ drama, The Blacks. For this occasion, the group of Maladype celebrate a funeral service in the Fencing hall of the Bárka Theatre. During the ceremony, which starts at midnight, they reconstruct a white woman’s ritual abuse and murder in front of the court of the Blacks and Whites.

"If some had decided to watch their own wonderful death, then the funeral symbols have to be selected and arranged strictly carefully. Or they can decide to live it over and investigate the Enemy.” (Jean Genet)

I was afraid of the starting time of the premier at midnight but then saw happily that the further performances are written to 9pm. The only problem was that the performance started 40 minutes later so at the beginning I could tell sensitive goodbye to the idea of the last metro.

Then at 9:40 pm I got into the fencing hall of the Bárka Theatre, which was like an amphitheatre then, where the audience could watch the fight of the blacks and whites.

That way it is not too punctual. There are not blacks and whites here. There are whites on black base, blacks on white base, blackish whites, some are changing colours, some have double colours, so all variations, combinations and permutations of black and white can be seen in the performance.

At the beginning the audience take their seats in the amphitheatre, while the two, opponent groups are about to fight. Their weapon is their fan, which is a shield, a knife, an orchestra and to my biggest surprise it is a fan too. Zoltán Balázs takes care to form the perfect opposites: one side can be seen with black skin tone in white dresses, the other one is just the opposite. Then instead of all their opposites suddenly they use the same sound. So they do not really tell anything.

They are just mouthing as their sounds are given by the group of young singers, who take their seats at the beginning above the actors, in black cowls on the upper floor of the circular construction, to the members of the two sides. Later they connect actively to the actors. This mouthing solution makes us remember the technology of the old Hungarian opera films, but the mimics and the singer-actor harmony are worked out better now. With this trick the common base of the opponents sides is shown better than any other way, which is used well mostly by the changing of roles, actors, colours and genders.

People can hardly follow the symbolic scales of actions, the two hours require strong concentration and I think it is impossible to understand everything for the first sight / hearing. It can be seen that the performance is well overthought and worked out well, the actors are in the work with the hearth and soul. László Sáry’s music employs besides the voices just a choir of fans and a contributor who gives the effects of the percussion instruments. The composition is minimalist and very effective for the first hearing too, it creates perfectly the tensed, symbolic atmosphere of the performance, which is increased by the actors’ play.

All the five singers sing two characters, they are performing all through the two hours. They deserve all our appreciation: they do their exercise perfectly. I have never heard Beatrix Fodor or Zoltán Gavodi singing so powerfully and beautifully.

What the story is about? Maybe it is not the most important one. The group of white aristocrats force the black servants to show a ritual victim on the basis of ideas that the whites have about the blacks: so they have to kill a white woman deliberately and brutally. But be careful: the colours can be changed easily! The scenes flow inevitably into each other, and it seems to be an aim too. After two hours the performance, which is not simply about the nonsense of racism, as we would think after the program, but it is much more than that.

At the end I do not mind that the last metro has left the station for a while. This evening is worth it for sure.

Á.L., Café Momus, 2004

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)