Post by Valancy on Oct 2, 2010 2:15:53 GMT -5
Vámpírok bálja - June 11th and 12th 2010
Such is the charm of the Budapest vampires that I haven’t been able to stay away from a single run (apart from the brief runs in the end of the summer) since I first saw the Hungarian production of Tanz der Vampire in January 2008. Again I had to go and see the June 2010 run although this time they performed the musical so rarely, only a couple of times each weekend, that I couldn’t see more than two shows as I couldn’t afford a long trip. I ended up going on the second weekend of June and saw two performances, Friday 11th and Saturday 12th June. It was quite a good choice as I ended up seeing many different actors even though it was usually the first cast who played most of the shows in June. I saw two different Alfreds, Sarahs and Magdas, and two new solo dancers. Both performances were fabulous and energetic, and so despite not having been able to see more shows, these two have brought and will bring me joy for a long time.
I’ve praised the Budapest production in several reviews already, but will once again say that it’s so fantastic every Tanz fan should see it. The sets and costumes are stunningly beautiful, and I think they look more authentic and fit the musical’s spirit better than the old designs. And I’ll never stop being amazed by what lively, multilayered and natural interpretations the actors of the Hungarian cast make of their characters, how well they play them out and what fantastic singers most of them are, and how filled with energy and enthusiasm the whole crew is. Everywhere you can feel that the musical has been done there with love and passion, and by an amazing number of talented people.
Cast
I’ll go through the performers of all the important roles, though I’m focusing more on those I have more new to say about, especially the new Sarah and both of the Alfreds. In the roles I where I saw two actors, the first one I talk about is the one I first saw, on Friday 11th, and the second one I saw on Saturday 12th. The Saturday performance was a full first cast. There are also a few mentions of the performances I saw in January, including a brief note on Ádám as Alfred, because I haven’t finished a full review of those shows.
Count von Krolock - Géza Egyházi
I’ve seen him play the role almost 20 times by now, so I don’t have a lot of new to say about him. But he’s in every way a fantastic Krolock whom I recommend the most warmly. He has an awesome, melodious baritone voice that keeps on getting better and better and is seriously the best I’ve ever heard in this role anywhere. He’s a charismatic, captivating Count who completely owns the role and the audience. I like his interpretation, which is not exceedingly pathetic but remains with a certain twinkle in his eye and a sense of fun - both Géza’s Krolock and Géza himself clearly have fun, and I like that. But he can also be emotional when it’s needed, and it’s interesting to follow the emotional states of his Krolock in different performances, especially in Die Unstillbare Gier - whether it’s an angstier day or rather irritable and misanthropist one for his Krolock. I also enjoy his pensive remembrance in the early parts of the song. I’ll leave the more in-depth descriptions of his Krolock to those better capable of it. I will just say that on those about 20 times I haven’t at all gotten tired of him and happily watch and listen to him as Krolock any time.
I do wish I had also seen Gábor Bot again, as I adore him. He has a completely different take on the role, dreamier and more ponderous, more the kind of Krolock who could attract me and make me consider his invitation. But as I didn’t see him, I have nothing to complain about with two shows of Géza either.
Sarah - Anna Török
A few days before the summer season’s premiere Anna wasn’t even officially in the production. But then the first cast Sarah, Zsanett, fell ill on the week before, and Anna was taken from the “possible future Sarah” list and trained in a few days to do the role for the premiere. I was very curious to see what she would be like, and so I was happy to see her listed for one of the shows I had tickets for. While I like Zsanett as Sarah, I’ve hoped to see someone new in the role as well.
Anna certainly didn’t disappoint. Actually, she became my favourite Sarah right away. I’d never have believed that it was only the third show she did, that her premiere had been less than a week ago and it had been about ten days since she began her rehearsals. Although you could see she was quite new and hadn’t had time to develop a very fine-tuned interpretation of her own, she performed very well. She also did some things I’ve really wanted to see in Sarah. For example, it has bugged me that Zsanett’s Sarah isn’t at all interested in Alfred. It works for how she plays the character, but I’ve wanted to see something different, because I think there’s a lot of interesting potential in the interaction and connection between Alfred and Sarah that is left out if she’s always pretty indifferent to him.
I saw Anna together with Gyuri’s Alfred, and it was the best Alfred-Sarah combination I’ve ever seen. As a consequence I ended up paying more attention to the Alfred-Sarah interaction than to Sarah’s relationship with Krolock, though the latter was also great. Anyway, Gyuri and Anna had great chemistry and played well against each other, and both seemed like young, eager, emotional people who had a lot in common. Their scenes were adorable and you could feel the characters’ mutual interest in each other. She didn’t become indifferent to Alfred as soon as the Count invited her to the ball but first seemed to wish she could take Alfred along, too. She seemed to really think much before she decided she would follow the invitation, and though she was attracted to Krolock and what he was promising her, there always remained a dark aspect that I liked, she seemed to be aware that the temptation she was following would destroy some of her as she was, and it was a scary thought to her rather than an easy choice. I liked that. And I got the feeling she clearly decided to go with Alfred in the end because this would be the way to truly win her freedom. But she also enjoys her vampire-ness and has fun with it, no question. I’ve wanted to see a Sarah like this and it’s very interesting.
Otherwise a lot of what she did was still borrowed from Zsanett or comes with the direction and she doesn’t yet have a lot of details of her own, but she still has her own kind of Sarah. She’s sweet and girly, both strong and sensitive, playful, eager and truly young. She feels neither like a silly twit nor like a flirty, manipulative b*tch, both of which can easily happen with this character. She had a lot of dreaminess and feeling, and she often moved me to tears while normally Sarah never does this to me.
Anna also has a lovely, beautiful voice and she sings with a wonderful ease and naturalness. Her voice is powerful without shouting or covering the others’ voices, and she sounds beautiful together with everyone. Though I’ve always considered Zsanett a good singer in the international Sarah comparison, Anna is even better than her and doesn’t have the slightly too pop-ish sound that Zsanett sometimes has. Anna is also very pretty and cute-looking, and she both feels and is truly young (she’s about 20, I believe, the same age as the youngest Alfreds of the production).
Of course there are details she has to work on, and especially I’d have loved to see her do more innuendo in the bathroom scene with Alfred, though she certainly has fun with the sponge. But when she gets more into the role, she’ll surely be able to make it better.
Sarah - Zsanett Andrádi
I’ve always liked Zsanett, but as I said, I’ve started to be bothered by the lack of certain dimensions in her interpretation, as well as the fact that in the past couple of runs I haven’t really seen anything new in her and I’ve felt she performs her role just routinely, though well as such. Maybe Anna’s coming did Zsanett good, because now there was new stuff and more energy in her Sarah as well. Her Sarah is definitely more after Krolock than Alfred, and she has a great chemistry with Géza; but she still seems to care a bit about Alfred as well, though mainly as a friend. Both in Draussen and in the castle bathroom scene I felt that she was telling her dreams and her exciting experiences to her friend, while not realizing (or refusing to realize) that he’s in love with her.
She had also in other ways gotten more sweetness and girlishness into her acting. For example, I liked the beginning of Wahrheit, where Alfred gets out of the house and sees Sarah at the window. Tibor’s Alfred, a perfect young gentleman, bows to her as a greeting, and now Sarah made a delighted, playful curtsey in return. It was cute. She also gets all the possible fun and innuendo out of the bathroom scene. She is still one of my favourite Sarahs, but I confess Anna stole my heart.
Alfred - György (Gyuri) Mihálka
Gyuri is probably the sweetest and more adorable Alfred ever, and he has a magnificent voice. He keeps finding more dimensions to his voice and using it more and more skillfully, his voice rings out even more beautifully and voluminously than before in some parts, in other parts he was able to sing very softly and gently while his voice still sounded lovely. He doesn’t need to show off his voice all the time so he can also do a lot with the changes in his voice tones and volume. I’ve never heard a Für Sarah as beautiful as this one, which he started with such beautiful but insecure softness and only towards the end, when Alfred really has found his courage and strength during the song, did he let out the full scale and power of his voice.
As for interpretation, out of all the Alfreds I’ve seen Gyuri is the most adorably clueless, confused and lost in his dreamworld, but without being stupid or completely hopeless and spineless. He’s awfully sympathetic, sweet and dreamy, and it’s adorable to watch his Alfred really want and try his best, but always be so out of touch with reality that things don’t work out. He has lots of funny details; for example in the crypt, when the Professor tries to spur him on by telling him to think about Chagal’s daughter, he does as he’s told - that is, he stands there thinking about Sarah while smiling dreamily, until he remembers that oh, the Professor probably means he should perhaps dare to do something scary for her sake. In a similar way, in the castle bathroom he’s just lost mid-song staring at her dreamily while he’s supposed to be trying to convince her to be rescued. It’s hilarious, and he manages to do it so that his Alfred doesn’t seem at all stupid, just really clueless and dreamy.
I like the way he says his line after Die Unstillbare Gier. Gyuri’s Alfred adorably seems like he understood something important there - and then the Professor won’t even listen to his discoveries, and so he runs after the Professor trying to keep on explaining. In general he works really well with the Professor (I’ve lately only seen him with Csaba’s Professor) and they have all sorts of little extra fun, usually so that the Professor improvises some extra lines and Alfred has to reply.
I also really like how his character develops during the story. He starts out as a very shy boy who obediently followers the Professor, without ever quite understanding everything his mentor says; but during the story he begins to realize that the Professor is not focused on what’s important to him, and through doubt he begins to find confidence in himself. And then Sarah bites him - and he becomes such a cute bouncy little vampire boy that one can’t feel sorry after all.
One more note: Gyuri seems to be very unlucky with the props. There’s a video of his premiere (I think) where he or Herbert drops the book; I’ve seen him lose the bag; I’ve seen the bench with Sarah’s shoes be missing so that he got confused and forgot his line; and it was either with him or László that the stake wasn’t in the bag when they were supposed to demonstrate staking to Rebecca. This time, the inevitable happened: the book wasn’t there in Wenn Liebe in dir ist. I think that the shelves were in a wrong order and the book was someplace quite different, and of course since he didn’t know where, he didn’t have time to find it before the song began. The poor boy’s expression was heartbreaking when he had to turn empty-handed towards the audience. Though I don’t know if people who didn’t know the show would have noticed a thing, if it wasn’t from the nervously giggly reactions of parts of the audience; Alfred is confused for most of the show anyway, and Gyuri managed to pull it through. It just looked like Alfred couldn’t find any meaningful books in the library, so he began to quote a poem he knew. Those who knew that it wasn’t going as it should naturally couldn’t help noticing Gyuri’s carefully controlled panicked face, or the fact that he occasionally was close to cracking up. (The panic was mostly in the beginning, later he mostly looked like he’d crack up.)
Fortunately when Alfred ended up at Herbert the stage people managed to slide the book along the floor so that it landed at Herbert’s feet just when he was talking about the book, and he could deftly pick it up and shove it to Alfred, and they could finish the scene as usual. I’ve never seen an Alfred look as relieved to have the book as Gyuri did then. Something I didn’t notice because I was too nervous for Gyuri to look properly, but which some other people noted: the mirror image still had the book though Alfred didn’t. This later caused ontological speculations about anti-vampiric books that don’t exist but show up in the mirror.
Alfred - Tibor Héger
I really like him now. Last summer I didn’t like Tibor’s Alfred at all, I wasn’t happy with either his acting, his singing or his interpretation. In retrospect, I think he just had a bad phase somehow, possibly having been exhausted by how much he’d had to learn and do since he went to Germany so that it somehow dulled his performance for a while. This January he was already much better: though I was still a little reserved towards his interpretation, which then seemed to lack passion and dreaminess, he definitely could act and had his own strengths, lots of fun details here and there and, it must be said, a very pleasing appearance. Such a pretty young man, and I discovered how captivating those eyes are as he was now using them for lots of great facial expressions, and he has the loveliest smile. I was curious to see how he would feel now when I’m used to the idea of liking him. And I ended up liking him even more than I thought I would.
He’s become so good. He acts excellently, delightfully expressively and naturally, with tons of wonderful detail, and he sings quite well, too. His Alfred is quite a smart and even capable young man, but still insecure and impractical enough that Alfred’s doubts, fears and failures are completely believable. And he definitely had ample amounts of emotion and passion now. His Alfred is a romantic, shy dreamer and absolutely enchanted with Sarah, though his behavior may be a bit more reserved and stiffer than that of some other Alfreds. I really liked his emotional development in Für Sarah (and how cutely he leaned against the bedpost), and he’s just totally adorable, sympathetic and natural.
In the early part of the piece, Tibor’s Alfred is Professor’s enthusiastic favourite student who tries very hard to remember everything the Professor says so he could become just as wise. Still, he also seems to have a certain humouristic attitude towards his mentor at times. His interaction with Krolock is wonderful, during the finale of the first act you can really see that he’s both terrified and fascinated by Krolock’s words and attention to him.
During the library scene Tibor’s Alfred clearly come to the conclusion that the Professor doesn’t understand the essential after all, and Alfred had better develop his own plan and act. In the ball scene he acts like he does have a plan - whether it’s a good one or not. He’s not quite as confused in the choreography of the menuet as e.g. Gyuri or Ádám are, and I miss that a bit. But maybe his Alfred is a conscientious boy who also took all the old dance courses he could find in Königsberg in the case it would be useful at some point. I love his acting when bitten - maybe it’s also the angle I watched it from, but more than any other Alfred I’ve seen he seems to combine terror with some dark erotic fascination with the bite, and he’s very active about getting bitten and dying. When he becomes a vampire he’s very determined about getting some blood now. He’s not as bouncy as Gyuri, but his determination and activeness suits his Alfred.
Tibor has been the second-cast Alfred (nowadays first cast) in Budapest since the production began in 2007, and since the late 2008 he has regularly played in the ensemble and as Cover Alfred in the German production. You can see his experience in a good way. He doesn’t feel too routined or too clockwork, he is very natural and seems to have a great joy of performing. But as he knows the role and the musical so thoroughly, he doesn’t have to spend a lot of time and energy thinking about what he must do and when, and so he has time to put lots of adorable details into his performance - more than anybody else I’ve seen, really. His features and his large, dark eyes are wonderfully suited for eloquent expressions.
I love his details. For example in Einladung zum Ball he treats the sponge so very tenderly, including practicing kissing with it… I confess I have little idea of what Krolock was doing in that scene - hey, if I’ve got Tibor making out with a sponge, I can do without seeing the 19th time Géza swings his cloak around impressively. Tibor also does what László used to do in the beginning of the scene where they try to stake Chagal: when the boards creak under the Professor and he goes “shh!” at Alfred, Tibor’s Alfred carefully watches which boards creaked, and then steps very noticeably over them so they don’t creak. I loved it! I also loved that in the crypt, when climbing back up on Krolock’s coffin, he first throws a frightened look into the coffin before climbing up on it. I always wished someone would do that, because it fits. His expression when the Professor pretends to have a heart attack is priceless. I could go on…
I always thought Tibor’s voice would be beautiful if he would learn to use it better, and now he has learned. Not comparable to Gyuri’s voice, but still a good voice for a young musical actor. His voice rings beautifully most of the time, and with volume when required. He sounds natural, sensitive and expressive, and he’s good at acting with his voice both in singing and speaking, sounding like he’s really thinking everything as he says/sings it. Sometimes he sings some parts too quietly so that you can scarcely hear him over the orchestra, though. But that’s pretty much the only criticism. Of course he still wasn’t perfect vocally, but I was quite impressed by how much he had developed. Oh, and his Hungarian is beautiful.
All in all, a lovely Alfred well worth seeing. I hope he stays in the Budapest production for some time yet, because I want to keep on seeing him now that I’ve found how much I can love him.
Alfred - Ádám Pásztor
I didn’t see him this time, but because I didn’t get around to finishing my review from January, when I did see him twice, I want to say a few words from him. He’s still new and inexperienced, and you can tell this from some insecurity and timing problems here and there, as well as a few notes he struggled with in January, but I’m sure some more time and experience will fix this. He is also a lovely Alfred, very expressive, has a nice voice, and yet another interpretation that is completely different from the others but works. His Alfred is a bit bolder and more active than others I’ve seen, someone with his head full of romantic dreams and taste for adventure, ready to rush out to do some great deed but rather less capable of putting these desires into practice. He gets clearly disillusioned with the Professor during the story, despite being an eager pupil at first. I’ve seen him with three different Sarahs by now (Dóra, Zsanett, Nikolett) and enjoyed his interactions with them all.
Professor Abronsius - Csaba Jegercsik
Csaba is unparalleled! I used to believe that Gernot Kranner would be totally unbeatable as Abronsius, but nowadays I wouldn’t even be surprised if after seeing him again I would discover I prefer Csaba - the latter is just so fantastic. He plays the Professor quite in his own way without copying anyone else. His Professor is an overenergetic academic Duracell bunny, who sometimes seems to have gotten several extra doses of caffeine before the show. On the other hand he’s not too wacked out; he’s competent and intelligent enough that he’s convincing as a slightly mad professor in a prestigious university (and aren’t they all slightly mad in their own ways?). Though it’s not a wonder that after this eager and determined scientist got totally crazy about vampire investigation his colleagues have gladly arranged a research grant for a trip to Transylvania, just to get him out of the way for a while. I wonder what sort of renewals to the curriculum and required reading list he was proposing for the two previous years or so. (Tibor’s Alfred probably read them all. Gyuri’s Alfred got all the books out of the library and then sat at his desk staring at the moon over the pile of unopened books. And tried to write a poem about moon and bats but couldn’t think up enough rhymes. Ádám’s Alfred did write a poem, several in fact, but I don’t think he made much progress with the books.)
Csaba often comes up with special extra fun, and likes to improvise extra dialogue and such things with his Alfreds in e.g. the end of the crypt or in the library. In general he’s very sweet with Alfred and cares about the boy, though he keeps poking him mercilessly (something he seems to have picked from the 2nd Professor, Dávid Sándor). He works well with all of the Alfreds.
Chagal - Béla Pavletits
Béla continues to be a fantastic Chagal, and can play the character so that he doesn’t feel overtly slimy and annoying but is truly entertaining and funny. He’s an excellent comedian who can get all the possible fun out of the part without overdoing it. Like Csaba, he sometimes has crazy over-energetic days, and this time both of the shows seemed to be that way, or else his Chagal has just become even more hilarious.
Magda - Márta Debreczeni
Márta doesn’t get to play Magda very often, and you can see it in some insecurity in both acting and singing. She still is a good Magda, and would be even better if she got to play a bit more. Her voice is beautiful when it doesn’t fall victim to a certain stuffiness that sometimes plagued it - but she could also let it out handsomely in the parts where it was needed.
She’s a dreamier Magda than average, seeming annoyed with her life and escaping it to thoughtfulness and fancies, but not any less strong for it. She can flirt with Alfred well enough, and I find it very believable a girl like her would be charmed by a cute and well-mannered foreign boy like him. In the crypt she’s lots of fun; instead of trying to be attractive to Chagal, she’s all bored with an “oh, he’s at it again, I’ll just mind my own business” expression when he’s singing. Going all lusty with him seems more like an entertaining game that amuses her right now, just like running away from Koukol with lots of screams is amusing a bit later. She’s also the most beautiful Magda I’ve ever seen, especially in her finale costume.
Magda - Éva Sári
The current first cast Magda, by now very secure both with her singing and her acting. Her Magda has lots of attitude, eyes the world with amused sarcasm and knows how to use her neckline to distract Alfred, and also how keep Chagal in check. She’s lots of fun both as a human and a vampire, and I like how thoughtful her “Tot zu sein ist komisch” is. She has a strong singing voice with a warm and full sound that I love. I don’t really have anything new to say about her, but she’s always a joy to see in this role.
Herbert - Dávid Pirgel
By now I’ve seen him so many times I find nothing new to say about him. He’s a good, lively Herbert, very amusing with funny details. Nowadays he doesn’t steal my attention as he used to in e.g. Tanzsaal because I’ve already seen many times what he does there and he hasn’t really come up with anything new lately. But most people don’t watch the show as many times as I do, so I’m sure lots of people still have fun watching him as Herbert, and I’ve nothing against seeing him either. Sometimes I’d like to see another really good Herbert, though, just for the variety. Dávid has his own special interpretation - a bored (but easily excited), conceited, queen-y teenager - and it would be lovely to see something different equally well done. I have also liked the 2nd Herbert, Victor Posta, but Dávid has more fire and personality in his performance.
Koukol - Gábor Attila Farkas
His Koukol becomes more and more talkative and expressive every time I see him - he had unusually much to say for an almost silent role already early in the production, but nowadays there’s still much more, and if he feel slike it, he even sings and dances a bit - in his own Koukol-ish way - when he goes to open the doors of the ballroom. He definitely makes the sweetest and most sympathetic Koukol ever, and makes the role much more awesome than I’d ever have thought it could be.
Koukol - Zsolt Szentirmai
He’s not comparable to Farkas, but he’s fine. He has some things of his own and is quite funny. Still I much, much prefer seeing Farkas as Koukol, but on the other hand I prefer seeing Szentirmai as Koukol to seeing him as a Carpe noctem soloist, because I’m not that into his voice, at least not for that song.
Ensemble and dancers
They had new additions to both the singing and dancing ensemble, and I think they have chosen good ones, because now the ensemble is stronger and more balanced than it has been on the past couple of seasons. Though it still makes a difference that Gyuri is not in the singing ensemble when he plays Alfred, it’s not nearly as noticeable as it used to be.
I really like the new dancers. I got to see the new Black Vampire, Ádám Solya, in both performances, and was very happy. I hadn’t been so fond of Lajos Túri, who dances technically well but just doesn’t fit the part, lacking in anything that would make him feel like Krolock’s dream double. With Ádám Solya I felt right from the first moves that this is the first really convincing Black Vampire since Ákos Tihányi left. Sólya is not physically very big but somehow his presence is. He’s full of strength and majesty, and seems entirely different as the Black Vampire than he does in his civilian cute young boy look. He dances well and is very attractive.
There was also a new Sarah double, Sarolta Nagy. She looks physically more like the Sarah actresses than Szilvia Taródi does (Szilvia and Anna look a lot alike, though), and she’s sweet, expressive and energetic. I saw her first performance, and of course she wasn’t as secure and perfected as Szilvia, but considering it was her premiere, she was quite excellent. I hope she’ll get to play the role more often. Though I still like Szilvia hugely as well.
The white Vampire, Tibor Nagy, is not among my favourites, mostly because he’s not the right type. He dances well technically and his acting is fine, but he's just too big and manly and un-Alfred-like in his appearance. It makes it hard to believe this is Alfred’s dream image of himself. However, he works a lot better with Ádám Sólya’s perfectly believable Black Vampire than with Lajos Túri who was smaller than him and could barely lift him. But I really wish someone made him grow out his hair for the performances, it’s always cut so short he’s almost bald, which is totally not Alfred, and when he’s anyway not Alfred-like I wonder how many people even realize he’s supposed to be Alfred’s dream image. It doesn’t even help much that they slap a wig on him when Tibor (Héger) is playing Alfred, because the wig is really ugly.
Otherwise the ensemble is fantastic, and the new people seem to be growing into their roles quickly. Gyuri Mihálka has been recast as the village fool in the inn scenes and was very cute and amusing in that role. I also like spotting other actors from the ensemble, especially Márta Debreczeni is really fun there. Gábor Bot always does a good job as the vampire on the roof of the bed/Nightmare soloist in Carpe noctem, even if Gyuri is now my favourite in that role since I saw him in it in January. Gyuri had the perfect voice for the role, high enough tenor with a bit of an edge suitable for such a heavy rock song, and he has the right combination of youth, etherealness, seductiveness, darkness and energy. I would love it if he got to play it more often.
Edited because I remembered a sneaky filter that is on place on this forum and would turn a certain word into "pregnant dog" unless you do something to censor it. Honestly, couldn't the filter work in some other way? Like just replace some letters with an asterisk or forbid you to post until you've corrected the "offending" word? It's so easy to forget, and there even are many musical songs with this word in the title, even if this wasn't the case now; and then it makes your post look stupid.
Such is the charm of the Budapest vampires that I haven’t been able to stay away from a single run (apart from the brief runs in the end of the summer) since I first saw the Hungarian production of Tanz der Vampire in January 2008. Again I had to go and see the June 2010 run although this time they performed the musical so rarely, only a couple of times each weekend, that I couldn’t see more than two shows as I couldn’t afford a long trip. I ended up going on the second weekend of June and saw two performances, Friday 11th and Saturday 12th June. It was quite a good choice as I ended up seeing many different actors even though it was usually the first cast who played most of the shows in June. I saw two different Alfreds, Sarahs and Magdas, and two new solo dancers. Both performances were fabulous and energetic, and so despite not having been able to see more shows, these two have brought and will bring me joy for a long time.
I’ve praised the Budapest production in several reviews already, but will once again say that it’s so fantastic every Tanz fan should see it. The sets and costumes are stunningly beautiful, and I think they look more authentic and fit the musical’s spirit better than the old designs. And I’ll never stop being amazed by what lively, multilayered and natural interpretations the actors of the Hungarian cast make of their characters, how well they play them out and what fantastic singers most of them are, and how filled with energy and enthusiasm the whole crew is. Everywhere you can feel that the musical has been done there with love and passion, and by an amazing number of talented people.
Cast
I’ll go through the performers of all the important roles, though I’m focusing more on those I have more new to say about, especially the new Sarah and both of the Alfreds. In the roles I where I saw two actors, the first one I talk about is the one I first saw, on Friday 11th, and the second one I saw on Saturday 12th. The Saturday performance was a full first cast. There are also a few mentions of the performances I saw in January, including a brief note on Ádám as Alfred, because I haven’t finished a full review of those shows.
Count von Krolock - Géza Egyházi
I’ve seen him play the role almost 20 times by now, so I don’t have a lot of new to say about him. But he’s in every way a fantastic Krolock whom I recommend the most warmly. He has an awesome, melodious baritone voice that keeps on getting better and better and is seriously the best I’ve ever heard in this role anywhere. He’s a charismatic, captivating Count who completely owns the role and the audience. I like his interpretation, which is not exceedingly pathetic but remains with a certain twinkle in his eye and a sense of fun - both Géza’s Krolock and Géza himself clearly have fun, and I like that. But he can also be emotional when it’s needed, and it’s interesting to follow the emotional states of his Krolock in different performances, especially in Die Unstillbare Gier - whether it’s an angstier day or rather irritable and misanthropist one for his Krolock. I also enjoy his pensive remembrance in the early parts of the song. I’ll leave the more in-depth descriptions of his Krolock to those better capable of it. I will just say that on those about 20 times I haven’t at all gotten tired of him and happily watch and listen to him as Krolock any time.
I do wish I had also seen Gábor Bot again, as I adore him. He has a completely different take on the role, dreamier and more ponderous, more the kind of Krolock who could attract me and make me consider his invitation. But as I didn’t see him, I have nothing to complain about with two shows of Géza either.
Sarah - Anna Török
A few days before the summer season’s premiere Anna wasn’t even officially in the production. But then the first cast Sarah, Zsanett, fell ill on the week before, and Anna was taken from the “possible future Sarah” list and trained in a few days to do the role for the premiere. I was very curious to see what she would be like, and so I was happy to see her listed for one of the shows I had tickets for. While I like Zsanett as Sarah, I’ve hoped to see someone new in the role as well.
Anna certainly didn’t disappoint. Actually, she became my favourite Sarah right away. I’d never have believed that it was only the third show she did, that her premiere had been less than a week ago and it had been about ten days since she began her rehearsals. Although you could see she was quite new and hadn’t had time to develop a very fine-tuned interpretation of her own, she performed very well. She also did some things I’ve really wanted to see in Sarah. For example, it has bugged me that Zsanett’s Sarah isn’t at all interested in Alfred. It works for how she plays the character, but I’ve wanted to see something different, because I think there’s a lot of interesting potential in the interaction and connection between Alfred and Sarah that is left out if she’s always pretty indifferent to him.
I saw Anna together with Gyuri’s Alfred, and it was the best Alfred-Sarah combination I’ve ever seen. As a consequence I ended up paying more attention to the Alfred-Sarah interaction than to Sarah’s relationship with Krolock, though the latter was also great. Anyway, Gyuri and Anna had great chemistry and played well against each other, and both seemed like young, eager, emotional people who had a lot in common. Their scenes were adorable and you could feel the characters’ mutual interest in each other. She didn’t become indifferent to Alfred as soon as the Count invited her to the ball but first seemed to wish she could take Alfred along, too. She seemed to really think much before she decided she would follow the invitation, and though she was attracted to Krolock and what he was promising her, there always remained a dark aspect that I liked, she seemed to be aware that the temptation she was following would destroy some of her as she was, and it was a scary thought to her rather than an easy choice. I liked that. And I got the feeling she clearly decided to go with Alfred in the end because this would be the way to truly win her freedom. But she also enjoys her vampire-ness and has fun with it, no question. I’ve wanted to see a Sarah like this and it’s very interesting.
Otherwise a lot of what she did was still borrowed from Zsanett or comes with the direction and she doesn’t yet have a lot of details of her own, but she still has her own kind of Sarah. She’s sweet and girly, both strong and sensitive, playful, eager and truly young. She feels neither like a silly twit nor like a flirty, manipulative b*tch, both of which can easily happen with this character. She had a lot of dreaminess and feeling, and she often moved me to tears while normally Sarah never does this to me.
Anna also has a lovely, beautiful voice and she sings with a wonderful ease and naturalness. Her voice is powerful without shouting or covering the others’ voices, and she sounds beautiful together with everyone. Though I’ve always considered Zsanett a good singer in the international Sarah comparison, Anna is even better than her and doesn’t have the slightly too pop-ish sound that Zsanett sometimes has. Anna is also very pretty and cute-looking, and she both feels and is truly young (she’s about 20, I believe, the same age as the youngest Alfreds of the production).
Of course there are details she has to work on, and especially I’d have loved to see her do more innuendo in the bathroom scene with Alfred, though she certainly has fun with the sponge. But when she gets more into the role, she’ll surely be able to make it better.
Sarah - Zsanett Andrádi
I’ve always liked Zsanett, but as I said, I’ve started to be bothered by the lack of certain dimensions in her interpretation, as well as the fact that in the past couple of runs I haven’t really seen anything new in her and I’ve felt she performs her role just routinely, though well as such. Maybe Anna’s coming did Zsanett good, because now there was new stuff and more energy in her Sarah as well. Her Sarah is definitely more after Krolock than Alfred, and she has a great chemistry with Géza; but she still seems to care a bit about Alfred as well, though mainly as a friend. Both in Draussen and in the castle bathroom scene I felt that she was telling her dreams and her exciting experiences to her friend, while not realizing (or refusing to realize) that he’s in love with her.
She had also in other ways gotten more sweetness and girlishness into her acting. For example, I liked the beginning of Wahrheit, where Alfred gets out of the house and sees Sarah at the window. Tibor’s Alfred, a perfect young gentleman, bows to her as a greeting, and now Sarah made a delighted, playful curtsey in return. It was cute. She also gets all the possible fun and innuendo out of the bathroom scene. She is still one of my favourite Sarahs, but I confess Anna stole my heart.
Alfred - György (Gyuri) Mihálka
Gyuri is probably the sweetest and more adorable Alfred ever, and he has a magnificent voice. He keeps finding more dimensions to his voice and using it more and more skillfully, his voice rings out even more beautifully and voluminously than before in some parts, in other parts he was able to sing very softly and gently while his voice still sounded lovely. He doesn’t need to show off his voice all the time so he can also do a lot with the changes in his voice tones and volume. I’ve never heard a Für Sarah as beautiful as this one, which he started with such beautiful but insecure softness and only towards the end, when Alfred really has found his courage and strength during the song, did he let out the full scale and power of his voice.
As for interpretation, out of all the Alfreds I’ve seen Gyuri is the most adorably clueless, confused and lost in his dreamworld, but without being stupid or completely hopeless and spineless. He’s awfully sympathetic, sweet and dreamy, and it’s adorable to watch his Alfred really want and try his best, but always be so out of touch with reality that things don’t work out. He has lots of funny details; for example in the crypt, when the Professor tries to spur him on by telling him to think about Chagal’s daughter, he does as he’s told - that is, he stands there thinking about Sarah while smiling dreamily, until he remembers that oh, the Professor probably means he should perhaps dare to do something scary for her sake. In a similar way, in the castle bathroom he’s just lost mid-song staring at her dreamily while he’s supposed to be trying to convince her to be rescued. It’s hilarious, and he manages to do it so that his Alfred doesn’t seem at all stupid, just really clueless and dreamy.
I like the way he says his line after Die Unstillbare Gier. Gyuri’s Alfred adorably seems like he understood something important there - and then the Professor won’t even listen to his discoveries, and so he runs after the Professor trying to keep on explaining. In general he works really well with the Professor (I’ve lately only seen him with Csaba’s Professor) and they have all sorts of little extra fun, usually so that the Professor improvises some extra lines and Alfred has to reply.
I also really like how his character develops during the story. He starts out as a very shy boy who obediently followers the Professor, without ever quite understanding everything his mentor says; but during the story he begins to realize that the Professor is not focused on what’s important to him, and through doubt he begins to find confidence in himself. And then Sarah bites him - and he becomes such a cute bouncy little vampire boy that one can’t feel sorry after all.
One more note: Gyuri seems to be very unlucky with the props. There’s a video of his premiere (I think) where he or Herbert drops the book; I’ve seen him lose the bag; I’ve seen the bench with Sarah’s shoes be missing so that he got confused and forgot his line; and it was either with him or László that the stake wasn’t in the bag when they were supposed to demonstrate staking to Rebecca. This time, the inevitable happened: the book wasn’t there in Wenn Liebe in dir ist. I think that the shelves were in a wrong order and the book was someplace quite different, and of course since he didn’t know where, he didn’t have time to find it before the song began. The poor boy’s expression was heartbreaking when he had to turn empty-handed towards the audience. Though I don’t know if people who didn’t know the show would have noticed a thing, if it wasn’t from the nervously giggly reactions of parts of the audience; Alfred is confused for most of the show anyway, and Gyuri managed to pull it through. It just looked like Alfred couldn’t find any meaningful books in the library, so he began to quote a poem he knew. Those who knew that it wasn’t going as it should naturally couldn’t help noticing Gyuri’s carefully controlled panicked face, or the fact that he occasionally was close to cracking up. (The panic was mostly in the beginning, later he mostly looked like he’d crack up.)
Fortunately when Alfred ended up at Herbert the stage people managed to slide the book along the floor so that it landed at Herbert’s feet just when he was talking about the book, and he could deftly pick it up and shove it to Alfred, and they could finish the scene as usual. I’ve never seen an Alfred look as relieved to have the book as Gyuri did then. Something I didn’t notice because I was too nervous for Gyuri to look properly, but which some other people noted: the mirror image still had the book though Alfred didn’t. This later caused ontological speculations about anti-vampiric books that don’t exist but show up in the mirror.
Alfred - Tibor Héger
I really like him now. Last summer I didn’t like Tibor’s Alfred at all, I wasn’t happy with either his acting, his singing or his interpretation. In retrospect, I think he just had a bad phase somehow, possibly having been exhausted by how much he’d had to learn and do since he went to Germany so that it somehow dulled his performance for a while. This January he was already much better: though I was still a little reserved towards his interpretation, which then seemed to lack passion and dreaminess, he definitely could act and had his own strengths, lots of fun details here and there and, it must be said, a very pleasing appearance. Such a pretty young man, and I discovered how captivating those eyes are as he was now using them for lots of great facial expressions, and he has the loveliest smile. I was curious to see how he would feel now when I’m used to the idea of liking him. And I ended up liking him even more than I thought I would.
He’s become so good. He acts excellently, delightfully expressively and naturally, with tons of wonderful detail, and he sings quite well, too. His Alfred is quite a smart and even capable young man, but still insecure and impractical enough that Alfred’s doubts, fears and failures are completely believable. And he definitely had ample amounts of emotion and passion now. His Alfred is a romantic, shy dreamer and absolutely enchanted with Sarah, though his behavior may be a bit more reserved and stiffer than that of some other Alfreds. I really liked his emotional development in Für Sarah (and how cutely he leaned against the bedpost), and he’s just totally adorable, sympathetic and natural.
In the early part of the piece, Tibor’s Alfred is Professor’s enthusiastic favourite student who tries very hard to remember everything the Professor says so he could become just as wise. Still, he also seems to have a certain humouristic attitude towards his mentor at times. His interaction with Krolock is wonderful, during the finale of the first act you can really see that he’s both terrified and fascinated by Krolock’s words and attention to him.
During the library scene Tibor’s Alfred clearly come to the conclusion that the Professor doesn’t understand the essential after all, and Alfred had better develop his own plan and act. In the ball scene he acts like he does have a plan - whether it’s a good one or not. He’s not quite as confused in the choreography of the menuet as e.g. Gyuri or Ádám are, and I miss that a bit. But maybe his Alfred is a conscientious boy who also took all the old dance courses he could find in Königsberg in the case it would be useful at some point. I love his acting when bitten - maybe it’s also the angle I watched it from, but more than any other Alfred I’ve seen he seems to combine terror with some dark erotic fascination with the bite, and he’s very active about getting bitten and dying. When he becomes a vampire he’s very determined about getting some blood now. He’s not as bouncy as Gyuri, but his determination and activeness suits his Alfred.
Tibor has been the second-cast Alfred (nowadays first cast) in Budapest since the production began in 2007, and since the late 2008 he has regularly played in the ensemble and as Cover Alfred in the German production. You can see his experience in a good way. He doesn’t feel too routined or too clockwork, he is very natural and seems to have a great joy of performing. But as he knows the role and the musical so thoroughly, he doesn’t have to spend a lot of time and energy thinking about what he must do and when, and so he has time to put lots of adorable details into his performance - more than anybody else I’ve seen, really. His features and his large, dark eyes are wonderfully suited for eloquent expressions.
I love his details. For example in Einladung zum Ball he treats the sponge so very tenderly, including practicing kissing with it… I confess I have little idea of what Krolock was doing in that scene - hey, if I’ve got Tibor making out with a sponge, I can do without seeing the 19th time Géza swings his cloak around impressively. Tibor also does what László used to do in the beginning of the scene where they try to stake Chagal: when the boards creak under the Professor and he goes “shh!” at Alfred, Tibor’s Alfred carefully watches which boards creaked, and then steps very noticeably over them so they don’t creak. I loved it! I also loved that in the crypt, when climbing back up on Krolock’s coffin, he first throws a frightened look into the coffin before climbing up on it. I always wished someone would do that, because it fits. His expression when the Professor pretends to have a heart attack is priceless. I could go on…
I always thought Tibor’s voice would be beautiful if he would learn to use it better, and now he has learned. Not comparable to Gyuri’s voice, but still a good voice for a young musical actor. His voice rings beautifully most of the time, and with volume when required. He sounds natural, sensitive and expressive, and he’s good at acting with his voice both in singing and speaking, sounding like he’s really thinking everything as he says/sings it. Sometimes he sings some parts too quietly so that you can scarcely hear him over the orchestra, though. But that’s pretty much the only criticism. Of course he still wasn’t perfect vocally, but I was quite impressed by how much he had developed. Oh, and his Hungarian is beautiful.
All in all, a lovely Alfred well worth seeing. I hope he stays in the Budapest production for some time yet, because I want to keep on seeing him now that I’ve found how much I can love him.
Alfred - Ádám Pásztor
I didn’t see him this time, but because I didn’t get around to finishing my review from January, when I did see him twice, I want to say a few words from him. He’s still new and inexperienced, and you can tell this from some insecurity and timing problems here and there, as well as a few notes he struggled with in January, but I’m sure some more time and experience will fix this. He is also a lovely Alfred, very expressive, has a nice voice, and yet another interpretation that is completely different from the others but works. His Alfred is a bit bolder and more active than others I’ve seen, someone with his head full of romantic dreams and taste for adventure, ready to rush out to do some great deed but rather less capable of putting these desires into practice. He gets clearly disillusioned with the Professor during the story, despite being an eager pupil at first. I’ve seen him with three different Sarahs by now (Dóra, Zsanett, Nikolett) and enjoyed his interactions with them all.
Professor Abronsius - Csaba Jegercsik
Csaba is unparalleled! I used to believe that Gernot Kranner would be totally unbeatable as Abronsius, but nowadays I wouldn’t even be surprised if after seeing him again I would discover I prefer Csaba - the latter is just so fantastic. He plays the Professor quite in his own way without copying anyone else. His Professor is an overenergetic academic Duracell bunny, who sometimes seems to have gotten several extra doses of caffeine before the show. On the other hand he’s not too wacked out; he’s competent and intelligent enough that he’s convincing as a slightly mad professor in a prestigious university (and aren’t they all slightly mad in their own ways?). Though it’s not a wonder that after this eager and determined scientist got totally crazy about vampire investigation his colleagues have gladly arranged a research grant for a trip to Transylvania, just to get him out of the way for a while. I wonder what sort of renewals to the curriculum and required reading list he was proposing for the two previous years or so. (Tibor’s Alfred probably read them all. Gyuri’s Alfred got all the books out of the library and then sat at his desk staring at the moon over the pile of unopened books. And tried to write a poem about moon and bats but couldn’t think up enough rhymes. Ádám’s Alfred did write a poem, several in fact, but I don’t think he made much progress with the books.)
Csaba often comes up with special extra fun, and likes to improvise extra dialogue and such things with his Alfreds in e.g. the end of the crypt or in the library. In general he’s very sweet with Alfred and cares about the boy, though he keeps poking him mercilessly (something he seems to have picked from the 2nd Professor, Dávid Sándor). He works well with all of the Alfreds.
Chagal - Béla Pavletits
Béla continues to be a fantastic Chagal, and can play the character so that he doesn’t feel overtly slimy and annoying but is truly entertaining and funny. He’s an excellent comedian who can get all the possible fun out of the part without overdoing it. Like Csaba, he sometimes has crazy over-energetic days, and this time both of the shows seemed to be that way, or else his Chagal has just become even more hilarious.
Magda - Márta Debreczeni
Márta doesn’t get to play Magda very often, and you can see it in some insecurity in both acting and singing. She still is a good Magda, and would be even better if she got to play a bit more. Her voice is beautiful when it doesn’t fall victim to a certain stuffiness that sometimes plagued it - but she could also let it out handsomely in the parts where it was needed.
She’s a dreamier Magda than average, seeming annoyed with her life and escaping it to thoughtfulness and fancies, but not any less strong for it. She can flirt with Alfred well enough, and I find it very believable a girl like her would be charmed by a cute and well-mannered foreign boy like him. In the crypt she’s lots of fun; instead of trying to be attractive to Chagal, she’s all bored with an “oh, he’s at it again, I’ll just mind my own business” expression when he’s singing. Going all lusty with him seems more like an entertaining game that amuses her right now, just like running away from Koukol with lots of screams is amusing a bit later. She’s also the most beautiful Magda I’ve ever seen, especially in her finale costume.
Magda - Éva Sári
The current first cast Magda, by now very secure both with her singing and her acting. Her Magda has lots of attitude, eyes the world with amused sarcasm and knows how to use her neckline to distract Alfred, and also how keep Chagal in check. She’s lots of fun both as a human and a vampire, and I like how thoughtful her “Tot zu sein ist komisch” is. She has a strong singing voice with a warm and full sound that I love. I don’t really have anything new to say about her, but she’s always a joy to see in this role.
Herbert - Dávid Pirgel
By now I’ve seen him so many times I find nothing new to say about him. He’s a good, lively Herbert, very amusing with funny details. Nowadays he doesn’t steal my attention as he used to in e.g. Tanzsaal because I’ve already seen many times what he does there and he hasn’t really come up with anything new lately. But most people don’t watch the show as many times as I do, so I’m sure lots of people still have fun watching him as Herbert, and I’ve nothing against seeing him either. Sometimes I’d like to see another really good Herbert, though, just for the variety. Dávid has his own special interpretation - a bored (but easily excited), conceited, queen-y teenager - and it would be lovely to see something different equally well done. I have also liked the 2nd Herbert, Victor Posta, but Dávid has more fire and personality in his performance.
Koukol - Gábor Attila Farkas
His Koukol becomes more and more talkative and expressive every time I see him - he had unusually much to say for an almost silent role already early in the production, but nowadays there’s still much more, and if he feel slike it, he even sings and dances a bit - in his own Koukol-ish way - when he goes to open the doors of the ballroom. He definitely makes the sweetest and most sympathetic Koukol ever, and makes the role much more awesome than I’d ever have thought it could be.
Koukol - Zsolt Szentirmai
He’s not comparable to Farkas, but he’s fine. He has some things of his own and is quite funny. Still I much, much prefer seeing Farkas as Koukol, but on the other hand I prefer seeing Szentirmai as Koukol to seeing him as a Carpe noctem soloist, because I’m not that into his voice, at least not for that song.
Ensemble and dancers
They had new additions to both the singing and dancing ensemble, and I think they have chosen good ones, because now the ensemble is stronger and more balanced than it has been on the past couple of seasons. Though it still makes a difference that Gyuri is not in the singing ensemble when he plays Alfred, it’s not nearly as noticeable as it used to be.
I really like the new dancers. I got to see the new Black Vampire, Ádám Solya, in both performances, and was very happy. I hadn’t been so fond of Lajos Túri, who dances technically well but just doesn’t fit the part, lacking in anything that would make him feel like Krolock’s dream double. With Ádám Solya I felt right from the first moves that this is the first really convincing Black Vampire since Ákos Tihányi left. Sólya is not physically very big but somehow his presence is. He’s full of strength and majesty, and seems entirely different as the Black Vampire than he does in his civilian cute young boy look. He dances well and is very attractive.
There was also a new Sarah double, Sarolta Nagy. She looks physically more like the Sarah actresses than Szilvia Taródi does (Szilvia and Anna look a lot alike, though), and she’s sweet, expressive and energetic. I saw her first performance, and of course she wasn’t as secure and perfected as Szilvia, but considering it was her premiere, she was quite excellent. I hope she’ll get to play the role more often. Though I still like Szilvia hugely as well.
The white Vampire, Tibor Nagy, is not among my favourites, mostly because he’s not the right type. He dances well technically and his acting is fine, but he's just too big and manly and un-Alfred-like in his appearance. It makes it hard to believe this is Alfred’s dream image of himself. However, he works a lot better with Ádám Sólya’s perfectly believable Black Vampire than with Lajos Túri who was smaller than him and could barely lift him. But I really wish someone made him grow out his hair for the performances, it’s always cut so short he’s almost bald, which is totally not Alfred, and when he’s anyway not Alfred-like I wonder how many people even realize he’s supposed to be Alfred’s dream image. It doesn’t even help much that they slap a wig on him when Tibor (Héger) is playing Alfred, because the wig is really ugly.
Otherwise the ensemble is fantastic, and the new people seem to be growing into their roles quickly. Gyuri Mihálka has been recast as the village fool in the inn scenes and was very cute and amusing in that role. I also like spotting other actors from the ensemble, especially Márta Debreczeni is really fun there. Gábor Bot always does a good job as the vampire on the roof of the bed/Nightmare soloist in Carpe noctem, even if Gyuri is now my favourite in that role since I saw him in it in January. Gyuri had the perfect voice for the role, high enough tenor with a bit of an edge suitable for such a heavy rock song, and he has the right combination of youth, etherealness, seductiveness, darkness and energy. I would love it if he got to play it more often.
Edited because I remembered a sneaky filter that is on place on this forum and would turn a certain word into "pregnant dog" unless you do something to censor it. Honestly, couldn't the filter work in some other way? Like just replace some letters with an asterisk or forbid you to post until you've corrected the "offending" word? It's so easy to forget, and there even are many musical songs with this word in the title, even if this wasn't the case now; and then it makes your post look stupid.
I might have made it shorter, but I felt I needed to squee extra for Tibor considering what I've said about him previously, and Anna needed lots of praise, too. 