DVD review: Romeo and Juliette, Hungarian version

[winter]

After much prodding from fyrie, I got around to watching the Hungarian version of the French musical I adored.

And I adored it even more.

The French version had stellar ballet-like choreograpy, but casting was spotty, and you just can't beat the Hungarians for sheer joy of performing. Especially not with the stellar cast they assembled - not one weak actor, and the leads perfectly cast.


The commercial DVD is the Szeged festival performance, so the scene is wider than in the Operett and most importantly, open-air. The sets are post-industrial burnished metal, cyberpunk-meets-Dune, and the usual Hungarian pyromania results in a hell of a lot of open flames, including fire-dancers at the ball scene. The costumes recalled David Lynch's incarnation of Dune as well, with leather punk outfits interspersed with sumptious Renaissance elements. The differences between Capulets and Montagus are much more subtle than in the French bi-coloured staging.

The order of songs is jumbled around in a way I found a little confusing at first. The idea of opening with the fight, then going into Verone works very well; I'm less fond of the fact La Haine is moved to the end of Act One, just before the wedding. The juxtaposition feels a little forced.

I'm not sure I like the fact that instead of a little more time devoted to Lord Capulet (the song Avoir une fille, which I guess Lajos Csuha, wonderful though he is, doesn't have the voice to hold), Paris is given a dramatic death scene and additional rage. It detracts a little from the quiet tragedy of the ending, but then it's Zsolt Hommonay, and how can you not give Zsolt Hommonay a dramatic song when you've got him onstage? His high notes are wonderful, and his comedic timing is as good as his dramatic one.

Talking of shining episodes, Attila Nemeth also should not have had the Prince's second song taken from him. He's rarely onstage, but when he is, he owns it; with the white crew-cut hair and the princely cloak, he looks positively unearthly.

Ottilia Csengeri is onstage only a little more often as Lady Montague, but she makes the best of it. She's imposing and just charming and passionate enough for there to be a resemblance between her and Romeo. And Lajos Csuha makes the best of his comedic moments as Lord Capulet - he was my favourite courtier in Elisabeth as well.

It was no surprise that Kata Janza made a manic, very fun and slightly dictatorial Lady Capulet. I had not heard Erika Naray before, but she was perfect as the Nurse, with the voice of a nightingale and great strength. I was not a fan of the Nurse-versus-Mercutio scene in the French version because of the harrassment overtones, but Erika put both Mercutio and Romeo in their places with one flick of a fan.

After the disaster that was the French priest's voice, Tamas Foldes was a relief. He knows his drama and his movement, but most of all he has a voice like a church cantor, the kind of voice that speaks straight to your bones. It worked very well with Erika's voice in the funeral scene; I wish they had played Valjean and Fantine against each other.

If I had to name one person I didn't like in the musical, I guess it would have to be Arpad Zsolt Meszaros as Benvolio - he bounced well, but it just didn't grab me. Mind you, he was at least on a level with the French Benvolio. It's just that everyone else outshined him ;)

Especially Mercutio. Oh, Zoltan Bereczki was beside himself - a fey, pale, red-haired creature of the night. He dances beautifully as well, constantly in motion, and the trio made a lovely team, full of boyish glee. Then came the death scene, and Zoltan turned into a wight, a demon from some strange pale hell. It worked beautifully.

Szilveszter Szabo was his Tybalt-reflection, grounded and raging with an all-too-human fury. I agree with fyrie that the Hungarian production gives Tybalt a few issues too many, but the one that works is grounding his character in the epilepsy he suffers from. I got a definite vibe of someone who skirts death and finds people nigh-incomprehensible because of it. And incidentally, Sziszi should always wear his head fluffed-up like this rather than plastered to his head.

And then there are the main characters: Dora Szinetar, a strong if very young Juliet with initiative, and Attila Dolhai's adorable boyish Romeo. I was very impressed, particularly so when Attila abandoned the attempts to sing in high tenor voice ;) He's just as handsome and charming as he should be, and she compliments him while not being a doll for him. A lovely young pair.

Though I have to admit I did not like what they did with the death scene. I agree leaving Death as a character would just cause giggles among Elisabeth fans, though technically Sziszi had time enough after his demise to go dunk his head in glitter and come back on ;) Yet there is nothing romantic about a death from hanging, and even less in Juliet's cutting her wrists open while dangling from Romeo's hanged body. What were they thinking?


End verdict: Like. Lots. With bells on. And look, you can buy it!

(And clips upcoming when I can access Youtube.)

Comments

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

I think someone said something about the Hungarians wanting to contemporarise suicide to a way that is recognisable to a young audience. Because clearly, sticking a knife in your chest is so passe.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Heh, I bet I would have liked the grisly death scenes. Thank you for the soundofmusic.de link--I wouldn't have been sure if that was the same musical without being told!

[winter]

It's heartily recommended :) The staging is gorgeous, and the cast is stellar. And it helps that the plot is Shakespearean so that the Hungarian doesn't get in the way.

[valancystar.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked! I told you it was better than the French one!

I pretty much agree with you on everything, though I like the placing of La Haine. It seems like in this version they've changed the song into a proper display of hatred rather than having two songs of look-this-city-dwells-in-hatred exposition one after another, and I feel it makes the story stronger in properly having the hate personified by actual characters with a name - besides Tybalt, that is, who has his own bunch of issues anyway.

I would also prefer to have kept the main pair's deaths as they were. I heard on some forum that it would be an attempt to contemporise the suicides, but I don't really think it's necessary... Anyway, love the cast to pieces except for Benvolio. I also wish they hadn't cut the Prince's second song - though I never was that fond of the song they had in the French version, but the Austrian version had a beautiful slow reprise of Verona which worked perfectly and would also have been wonderful for Németh Attila's Prince.

I bought the very overpriced DVD that Sound of Music sells (it's much cheaper in Hungary) but haven't regretted it once. :)

[winter]

I just thought it kind of non-sequitur. I guess the over-the-headness of it being followed by Aimer is more jarring for me ;) And the deaths... I was watching it with Mother, and she said something pertinent: Romeo is not the hanging type. Neither is Juliet the cut-your-wrists type. They're both the type to either stab themselves, or jump off a cliff.

[valancystar.livejournal.com]

I somehow like them contrasting hatred with love, and generally giving that song an actual function in the drama, since it's a brilliant song. I was originally quite surprised by the placing - though it does say something that before the song started, I hadn't noticed it had been missing from its original place. The action flows a bit better that way, when the main characters get introduced more quickly without so many songs of exposition.

By the way, it's interesting that you commented on Dóra playing a very young Juliet, because as herself she is much older than Cécilia was when she played the role (she actually was 15 or 16, the age Juliet is in the musical). But Dóra actually acts so she comes across as a young girl. ;) That's one of the things I love about the Hungarian version, the main couple actually feel like real young people passionately in love, rather than Ideal Images of Love which seems to be the French version's conception of them...

[winter]

the main couple actually feel like real young people passionately in love

Oh, they definitely do :) All the giggling is infectious.

[moe-almanthea.livejournal.com]

While I prefer Romeo and Julia's death commited in "traditional" way, Hungarian R&J is darker, more realistic and in the end more depressing than the French original, so for me the way they killed themselves suits to the conception of whole show. But gibbet in the tomb is a bit ridiculous idea ;)

[winter]

I gues it made a little sense with Paris ;) Maybe he lay in wait for Romeo, then wanted to hang him on the spot.

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

That's how it is in the play, though. Paris is lurking about over his dead fiancee and gets knocked off by Romeo. Incidentally, poor Paris. All he wanted to do was marry the hot 14 year old babe and he ends up with her dead on the wedding day and then murdered by her family's enemy in the crypt.

[valancystar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, poor Paris. At least they gave him more personality in the Hungarian production. In the other versions of the musical he's just a plot device.

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Yes, all that ogling he does of Tybalt not withstanding ;)

[valancystar.livejournal.com]

Hey, that's personality, too. ;)