This year's International Bartók Seminar and Festival offers a unique multimedia production. In a joint performance by the Maladype Theatre and the Qaartsiluni Ensemble, László Sáry's semi-serious opera Great sound in the rush, based on a variation poem by Sándor Weöres, will be staged. We spoke with the director of the performance, Zoltán Balázs (Maladype Theatre), and its musical director, Lajos Rozmán (Qaartsiluni Ensemble), about the upcoming production.

- What prompted the beginning of your collaboration?

Lajos Rozmán: It was the composer who initiated this work. He has been working with me for decades, and Zoltán has had many joint projects with him as well. He reached out to Zoltán to dive into this venture together.

Zoltán Balázs: Indeed, the composer took charge of his own project.

- Did he keep control during the rehearsal process, or did he give you more freedom?

LR: I can say that he completely entrusted it to us.

ZB: Although, I should add that Lajos and I thoroughly prepared the musical material.

LR: Yes, I haven’t left him alone for a year and a half. We went through it until I understood exactly what it was about. Although I had already worked with this material and many of his other works, I really needed to understand it precisely this time.

ZB: At our request, he even made changes to the music, and he even added new sections.

- So, the piece has changed since the world premiere?

LR: The music is a living thing, so it could still be considered a world premiere, especially since it was a completely different constellation back then. The main difference now is that musicians are primarily performing the piece, with actors joining them – specifically six musicians and two actors – whereas in the original premiere, a full cast of actors performed, and their musical tasks were, of course, extremely challenging. So, every such task was simplified, and some details didn't even make it into that interpretation.

ZB: The production now aligns with the composer’s original intuition, especially in terms of the musical material. Everything else is a matter of imagination. It’s important that it is not aligned with one team or another, but rather with the “Common Cause,” for which I am responsible as the director, and Lajos is responsible as the head of the musical work. Lajos subtly embedded the material into the musicians’ and actors' minds so that it would serve as a solid foundation for further development, for movement, spatial play, and intense concentration tasks that test focus. It’s a truly great symbiosis between the musical material and the directorial concept.

- I had the chance to briefly peek into the rehearsal, and it was hard to determine exactly who the musician and who the actor was...

LR: That was one of the main tasks, to integrate the actors among the musicians, meaning we are creating an orchestra where everyone is equally important. The fusion was the main goal. We are merging tasks, merging people, so that it’s hard to tell who’s the actor and who’s the musician, and we do everything together.

ZB: And it wasn’t even a difficult task, because those actors from Maladype who are involved in the production are musically well-trained but have further developed through the tasks. The musicians of the Qaartsiluni Ensemble are also exceptionally talented actors. This doesn’t mean they’ve spent years on stage or in studios, but they are very tastefully aware, very sensitive artists. From a theater perspective, it’s very useful that those taking on acting roles in the performance are such precise and thorough individuals, as precision is often what actors lack. Acting is an intuitive genre: “I’ll feel it, I’ll be carried away, it will take me along...” Musicians, however, cannot engage in such instinctive play (other than perhaps improvising in a piece) because music is based on rhythms, precise structuring, parts, and needs more professional knowledge. Acting, on the other hand, can afford a bit of leeway. But here and now, neither side can afford to be vague; full presence is required, because it challenges both personality and creative ability. It was truly an exceptionally fortunate encounter.

- What was the biggest challenge during the process?

LR: The main challenge was focusing all our attention on this specific task, first mentally, when building the vision in our minds. For me, that’s one of the most important parts of the work, and it can take a long time. I dream up who could work with whom, who might be suitable for a certain task, and then I connect these people, and once a concrete idea forms, we meet the material itself. In this case, it was very special, as such musical material is not widely available. This musical language is incredibly unique, and that's precisely why it is not in circulation; it demands very specific constellations, and a more casual, everyday practice cannot realize it.

ZB: Sándor Weöres has very special mindsets, and so does László Sáry, so our minds couldn’t loosen up or rest either. We had to be very focused on these strange, distorted, at times seemingly overly simple yet incredibly complex formulas given by the poet and the composer. We have to constantly move a kind of structure or fabric, which, beyond requiring very precise coordinates from the participants and the audience (since the audience is the one continuing the drawing of events), keeps its focus on irregularity, continuity, and change. You can’t prepare for this in a day. Rehearsal is there to let the participants overwrite everything we’ve worked out in advance. Progress can’t be dictated solely by a strong concept, or else the result would be robots and executors. Their creativity, their personality, is what energizes the events. We have to build the shared language, the dictionary, for the actors and musicians. (Perhaps now we’ve reached a point where they can move the whole thing themselves, in the spirit of personal responsibility.) So, the challenge was that the big picture belongs to them, and they can represent it even when they are only responsible for a small part of it.

- Lajos Rozmán is participating not only as the musical director but also as a musician. How does he experience this dual role?

LR: This is definitely a parallel task. One of the common problems in opera performance is the harmony between the director and the musical director, their mutual understanding. In the classical setup, the director is the external eye who brings everything together, and the musical director is typically the conductor, who is a performer, a player in the process. In a sense, that’s what’s happening here too, but the internal play of the so-called orchestra is much more balanced, as there’s no conductor directing the musical process. As soon as I step into the orchestra, I’m also a soldier in this whole game, part of the team, just as important in my place as everyone else.

ZB: This role comes with many sacrifices. It really challenges Lajos...

LR: Yes, but I’m happy being a soldier. It’s interesting how hard it is for people to accept leadership; they constantly argue with it. I don’t quite understand it. When I’m a part of it, and I can’t see, hear, or embrace the whole thing from the inside, I fully accept whatever is given to me from the outside because there’s no other option. It’s strange that many people find this so difficult, even though it’s a perfectly clear setup: when I’m outside, I lead; when I’m in, I’m a soldier. People should learn these two roles, and there wouldn’t be any issues. I also encourage my musicians to take leadership on certain tasks, to experience what it’s like when they’re responsible for that woodwind quintet, for that sextet, for that movement... They really struggle to take it on.

ZB: Don’t be misled by the "soldier" term, it doesn’t mean they need to participate without soul, but their small task contributes to the larger whole, as independent personalities with independent responsibilities. But their energy, attention, adds up and creates that something which, if we call it a hot air balloon, might one day lift off...

- The Maladype Theatre’s artistic philosophy is freedom. How does this manifest in this opera?

ZB: This is freedom itself. The variation surface offers many possibilities, and our theater, and I think Qaartsiluni as well, loves variations, change. The idea that you pull on the net at one point and the whole thing moves, then pull at another point and it moves again; constantly searching and exploring.

LR: I think that no matter what creation we take, freedom is not primarily in the material. It only has the possibility for freedom, and it unfolds when the one touching it demands it. In classical music, even with well-known, established pieces, the experience is that the greatest performers are the ones who approach it the bravely. I’m a proponent of the idea that if you’re capable, rewrite the piece according to what the current situation dictates.

Zsófia Hózsa, playlist, 2015

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek