Before The Wooden Prince: Károly Szabados's Ballet Vióra (1891) in the Context of the History of Hungarian Ballet

Abstract

Following the debut of Károly Szabados's ballet Vióra on March 14, 1891, the daily newspaper Pesti Hírlap called the date a glorious day not only for Hungarian music, but also for Hungarian genius and spirit in general, and treated the debut at the Hungarian Royal Opera House in Budapest as an allegory for spring: “It was as if the refreshing, revitalizing breaths of that traditional March breeze had blown across the hall of muses on Andrássy Road: such was the enthusiasm dominating the spectators' benches and the stage alike.”1 According to the newspaper, it was the long-anticipated victory of “the Hungarian genius, which some had begun to consider as almost alien to the Hungarian royal theater,” and it was all thanks to Géza Zichy (1849–1924), one of whose first acts as intendant was bringing this long neglected piece to the stage.2 In the context of Vióra's premiere, the “Hungarian genius” and the “Hungarian spirit” manifested on several levels, as it was the decision of a Hungarian intendant to present the evening-long ballet of a Hungarian author revolving around Hungarian themes; but this raises the question, why did a Hungarian ballet carry such significance at the time? What place does Károly Szabados, the author of the ballet, occupy in the history of Hungarian music, and how was the ballet and its music received by contemporaries in and out of the limelight? This study attempts to answer these questions by examining contemporary Hungarian and German news articles and music critiques published in Budapest.