Gül Baba – Interview about the New Years Eve Show

Looking at your directoral work, you seem to be doing a lot of musical theatre. The genre of the operetta is oftentimes considered controversial. What are your thoughts on it?

My thoughts on operettas are clear: I like them, and most of the time, I appreciate it if a story is told through music or characters that somehow appear through music. From this point of view, it is actually secondary whether it is an opera with tragic overtones or a comic operetta.

Will this also be felt in our Gül Baba, will the music be perhaps more important than the dialogue in the performance?

Yes, definitely. Gül Baba has a ridicilously simple plot, a matter of the heart, which I won’t tell you now. I’ll let the music do that. While preparing for it, we felt that in truth, this was really a story of music. Not to mention that Jenő Huszka wrote the operetta with his constant composing partner, Ferenc Martos, as if he had operatic intentions. Everything in Gül Baba happens with or with the help of music.

On the outside, operetta like seems like such a fun, light genre, but at the same time, these seemingly simple stories contain important messages. How can this be kept in balance?

True, besides the love story, Gül Baba does have a strong message that the theatre should talk about. However, the music elevates this sharp ethnic-religious conflict that appears in the operetta, which is why we do not really feel its weight. It doesn’t weigh in on our conscience, rather, it helps us identify the problem. It's easy to identify with both the young man and woman, and the wise Gül Baba, so much so that I think watching this performance will purify you. With this good feeling we will be able to plunge into the endless joy of New Year's Eve.

Tickets are already avalible for December 30th’s dress rehearsal, along the festive performances on the 2 and 3 of January, at www.szigligeti.biletmaster.ro  and at the theatre’s box office.