The richness of the variations with which the performers show the classic English operetta amuse me. All roles are played by three actors (the puppet, the one who moves it and a singer), and nowadays it is not rare, many times it is self-serving, tiring idea, but here it gets renewing meaning in every moment. A puppet with a puppet, a puppet with an actor, a puppet with a singer, an actor with an actor, an actor with a singer, a singer with a singer: they are communicating, playing, arguing, flirting, kissing, and living. The marionette, which is moved by an actor, sits on the singer’s palm, head, shoulder; it is slipping down his thigh. One of the main characters is Ko-Ko, who is a tailor-executioner, he is crowing like a ridiculous tyranny snake, while he is carrying on his back his puppet version. The singers are singing while they are standing on their arms. The ideas, which would be enough for more performances, too are not about exhibitionism at all. The Mikado is a political satire, which is placed into an imagined, mocked Japan and a tale at the same time, and the usage of puppets can be connected to both quality, the multiplication, the revelry in the (nice) ideas.

To talk about the writers: in the Anglo-Saxon world, the order is the other way around. Here the composer is at the beginning in case of songs, and musicals, then the text writer comes: Szörényi – Bródy, Fényes – Szenes. It is different there. From the couple of The West Side Story, Sondheim – Bernstein, the text connects to the earlier one, the music to the later one. In theory it the same in case of Lennon – McCartney, in reality it is more complicated there. From the duo of Gilbert and Sullivan it is obvious anyway, that William Schwenk Gilbert wrote the text of songs, the librettos, Arthur Sullivan did the music. The Mikado is their most successful operetta, during their cooperation, between 1871 and 1896 (with some exception) they achieved one success after another. In Hungary, unfortunately their witty and creative plays are not played too often.

The Mikado, from 1885, is put into Japanese costumes, but it criticises the common, corrupt and oppressive British circumstances, but as in case of good satires, it is still valid today. “I have eaten most of the bread of the country.” – tell in it the master of corruption and power holding. For the performance the use Kálmán Kovách and József Romhányi’s translations, obviously the perfect games of words are the inventions of the later one. The marionette figures, which were designed by Judit Gombár and made by Pál Lellei are the excellent masterpieces of mocking characterization, for them the members in the IV. year of the course of puppet masters bring to life. The group is excellent, and because I would like to emphasize their performance, I write their names there: Zoltán Papp, Péter Jankovics, Péter Bercsényi, Antos Gémes, Zsófia Vesztl, Borbála Karádi, Viktória Éva Nagy, Mariann Fabók, András Gombai-Nagy. I do the same with their “singer partners”, with the students of the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music: Gyula Orendt, András T. Borbély, Zsolt Tihanyszegi, Gábor Bálint, Viktória Denk, Haris Nadin, Renáta Németh, Ágnes Anna Kun, Pál Sebestyén.

As I have said, all the eighteen of them can introduce themselves from different point of views: the singers perform perfectly, the actors sing perfectly, and seemingly, all of them enjoy the performance very much. As well as the viewers. I have only one small excuse: in some cases the “over moving” makes the text hard to understand and unstressed the tune. With all of it, in the young director, Zoltán Balázs’ career, which has been remarkable so far, The Mikado is one of the best performances. It is filled with grace and soul.

György Harmat, Tiara Magazin, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)