The trial cast is not strange in case of musical genres but it is not as common as the puppet and opera singer students perform Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, The Mikado on the University of Theatre and Film Art: the triad is on stage at the same time, all the roles of the operetta are performed simultaneously by an opera singer, a puppet artist and a puppet.

It is undeniable that the puppet art-like (which is slightly similar to the form language of children performances by Studio K) stylization can connect perfectly to the absurd turns of the text from a light genre: the main character of the corruption in the small Japanese town is the governor-main executioner himself, Ko-Ko. He has however, grabbed all tools to collect more power and money for himself, he has not got up to in concerto, the fulfilment of any sentences which are asked by the ruler. He obviously knows that according to the laws in force, he would need to start the execution with himself. The situation becomes exciting when the Japanese emperor, The Mikado has announced his arrival and a retaliation in case of the fact they do not execute at least one person in the guilty town. Meanwhile he wants the main executioner’s adopted daughter’s, Yum-Yum’s hand, however she has still been in love with Nanki-Poo, with the Japanese emperor’s son, who appears as a wandering musician in incognito, who arrives there while he is escaping from the bloodthirsty suitor. For Ko-Ko (obviously he does not know who he faces up with), the boy comes in a good time, and makes a deal with him; if he accepted the role of the executed one, then until the arrival of the emperor (for a month) he can live in a happy marriage with the girl, who then as a widow can finally become Ko-Ko’s wife. But suddenly The Mikado arrives, with princess Katisha between his companion, who chases the heir with her love. Ko-Ko and the allied noble people with him try to save the situation with the verbal and vocal demonstration of the unmade execution, but it goes the other way around, when it turns out that the sentenced one is not anybody else than the emperor’s son. The executions of the others are finally cancelled, the Gordian knot was finally cut by Ko-Ko as he baits Katisha to himself, and The Mikado orders a general wedding, where next to the couples of Katisha and Ko-Ko and Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum, the adopted daughter’s lady-companions give their hands to the noble people around the main executioner. The tale makes fun with death in a morbid way (“Without Yum-Yum the death cannot be life” – tells the lover Nanki-Poo, for example, thanks for the translation by József Romhányi, meanwhile for the nice, modern interferences I think Judit Góczán, the dramaturg is responsible), so that way the tale can reach its final solution without any death.

The music itself is a fabric too, besides its shocking technical hardness, it needs easy gracefulness from the vocalists. It is a virtuoso scales of etudes, it is a good training material for “more serious” comic operas (for example, for a Figaro, or Escaping – it cannot be an accident that this later one has moved Tim Caroll too in Debrecen, in a very similar way, moving together the puppet artists and the singers). Some dramatic weight is connected only to the role of princess Katisha that moves immediately the tip of the scales: for a moment the ghost of Donna Elvira is floating above us, not with a low bet, she shows us the possibility of real love in this light dark comedy, which is dressed in exotic costumes.

Zoltán Balázs’ direction uses all possibilities of the fact that we can see all through the performance the very flexible marionette puppets, the actors, who animated them, and the vocalists who are connected to them. The greatest “scenic” trick is that the singers are “pillars” of the play in their whole physical appearance not only vocally: with the lack of set their arms, legs and backs serve as seats, form a space in the performance, while of course, they must and can sing in the most impossible positions the voices, about which we have told how hard they are (in case of entrées for example while they are laying on their backs or crawling on their bellies). This movable, mobile space makes possible the really fast and colourful changing of the pictures, while makes us feel in a mini universe, which is growing freely and organic but shows perfectly that moral swamp in which, the town exists (It is not hard to see Ko-Ko and his helpers as the corrupt main leaders, god-fathers, the grey and black businessmen, and the text strengthens it too). Above all these: the constant presence of the characters can rise well the numbers of the possible interactions: as (sorry for it) the opera singer who is there as an “object of the space” can become anytime a character: it is enough if they react on themselves as superegos, but the most effective thing is when in a virtuoso circle, during the love aria by Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum everybody kisses everybody in a nice order – the puppet with the actor, the singer with the puppet artist and so on.

The ideas, which can come from the stylization of the puppets, can be listed for long, the situations can be served with the humour of commedia de’l arte, in the mood of the middle-aged tricks. Just to show some of them: that way the text of a letter can be written on some characters’ soles, while the envelope is nothing else than the socks which have been pulled of, from it before. The trick which has been thought for the singers, as the local dignities are singing the unreliable story of the fake executions standing on their hands, while the puppets which are connected to them, find their podium, leaning between their legs, on the place of that most noble organs. My favourite the wheel of fortune anyway, which is turned by the actors during the choir scene about the fortune (The Mikado has not become angry with the fool one, who tried to kill his son, just as a man/god, who respects his own laws, he must follow the rules: according to it they must be cooked in hot oil). As the result of the vocal and artistic common work by the members of the whole troupe, the puppets and the real actors become a real carousel, the turner is the emperor himself (so the actor, who plays him).

I do not have to tell that in this colourful mixture, the fact dissolves beneficially that who is the specialist of which art: who can distinguish which arm is for the puppet artist, and which is for the opera singer in the game, when an “operetta stairs” is formed from them for the arrival of The Mikado or during the overture of the second part, when the girl characters with movements like rustling reeds illustrate the dreamy musical moment about love. (Meanwhile the puppets are sleeping leaning forward, but the wires of marionettes, which can move them turn into strings, which the players can pluck in a bitter-sweet way like harps). But all these can work the other way around too: without the puppet artists’ voices the perfect musical movements cannot be measured as choirs.

It is a rare elevated moment: the world fame of Budapest (at least between the insiders) has picked up soon this easy and free result of this exam project – but not so much that they would spend too many letters on it, more concretely in the printed newspapers: not even one of them. Meanwhile I could see those kinds of future actors and singers in the evening of the stage of Ódry, who do not know any jokes in the noblest sense of the world, and they can work together outstandingly in the performance. I wish them: they would keep this good habit later on in their career too. We hope that all of them can become strong individuals on their own “field”, in a paradox way, that during this kind and similar mental and cooperative social way of life they can perform the elemental art of barnstorming for us and for themselves together.

Gábor Pap, Ellenfény, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)