It was absolutely impossible for me to determine the exact date of the premiere of the performance with the participation of a musical celebrity My beautiful lady from the Company Harag György Northern Theater in Satu Mare. But I know for sure that the play signed by the great director Andrii Šerban was part of the offer of the festival of Hungarian theaters, which took place in the capital in the fall of 2023. That is, exactly where the most consistent part of Romanian theater criticism lives.

So I tried to find out what, how and how much was written about that show. Unfortunately! I found next to nothing and absolutely nothing consistent. Leaving aside one or two sublime texts that speak more about the author’s biography than about the play, I found only a few random phrases that suggested that this new version of Lowe and Alan Jay Lerner’s musical would have a very small Andrii Shcherban. A sign that, unfortunately, Corina Shuteu is very right, which in an article published a few weeks ago in the 22, points out that Romanian criticism, whatever it may be (still), is no longer capable of understanding the great value of Andrei Sherban. Neither UNITER, nor the FNT curators, nor its president actually have it. But I wrote about it earlier and also for nothing. Both UNITER and the curators, woe betide them!!!, and Dragos Buhagiar are immortal and cold to everything, to everything and especially completely indifferent to the voices of those who bring them only praise.

But let’s leave these ephemeris alone! Let’s go back to the main thing. to My beautiful lady. The performance of the Hungarian-language troupe of the Northern Theater in Satu Mare does not aim to recreate George Cukor’s 1964 film on stage. Do not imitate any of these. Why should he do this? And, yes, Andriy Shcherban (fortunately!) is not like the one, for example, from the discussion Oedipus performed almost two decades ago on stage Romanian operanor with that of Lucia of Lammermoor rather than with perhaps too politically oppressed Merry widow. A small subplot announcing the imminent strike of the Higgins house staff amuses the audience, but does not pretend to add much value. Sherban has the ability to redefine himself and the ability to always be different, and young and even younger directors should take note of his performances.

Montan my beautiful lady Andrii Shcherban moved to a truthful and creative reading, but here the creativity is neither exaggerated nor aggressive. I don’t think there’s anything missing from the operetta except the overture, which I am DONE, as they say, applause at the end, the scenes are not shifted. Everything is logical, classic and modern at the same time. This is the show My beautiful lady fully meets the expectations of the public today. Each scene, each sequence is developed with maximum attention, load peaks – approx. for example, the scene of the failure of Eliza’s first public appearance, like the scene of Higgins’ egotistical supposed triumph – being absolutely exemplary.

This time we don’t see large, lush scenery, set designer Iryna Mosku prefers dynamic, lively, moving solutions embodied in a series of white parallelepiped columns that descend and rise to the bridge of the stage. Complemented by several well-chosen pieces of furniture. There is a slight movement of the action from the era Loewe and Lerner wanted closer to the present day, a fact also realized through the costumes created by CS. Zsuzsanna’s Kiss, Balaskó Balász. Unfortunately, not always very successfully and not all in favor of the performer Eliza in the version of the show that I saw. Actress Nicolette Kovacs. Who, leaving Professor Higgins’ house, appears with a small suitcase, from our days, and in the last one with a small backpack.

The series has very high-quality humor. What it looks like during the phonetics lessons of Professor Higgins (Bodea Gal Tibor), in his discussions and arguments with Pickering (Orban Zholt) or Professor Karpati (Gal Dyula), as well as in the vivid appearances of Alfred Doolittle (Rappert-Wentz Gabor) ) and his satellites (Poshet Nandor and Peter Attila Sandor). The relationship between Eliza and Higgins is strong, so it’s not for nothing that the flower girl is dressed in a karate costume in phonics lessons. And the way the teacher and the very young Freddy (Szabo János Szilard) are depicted on stage, one more pampered, in some places even funnier than the other, as if wanting to confirm the repeated exclamations of Mrs. Higgins (Meches Kati), These men!. Which does not mean for a moment that Andrii Sherban and Daniela Dima (associate director and co-author of the play) would side with aggressive feminism with guns and baggage. Cultures woke up Which goes so far as to almost call for the eradication of men.

The great merit of Andrii Shcherban is that he never for a moment forgot that the audience comes, wants to see and see My beautiful lady for at least three reasons. Loewe’s wonderful music and a good balance between solo and group parts and choruses, an explosion of life and color in the group scenes and finally the vitality of the dances and group scenes. The director was lucky to find at the Company Harag György a troupe of actors extremely well trained for music, so that he could compose not one but two actors. Kovacs Nicolette, and Bodea Gal Tibor, and Orban Zholt, and Rappert-Wentz-Gabor, and Szabo Janos-Szilard, and Pochet Nandor, and Peter Attila, and Rappert Wentz-Stella are also near flawless. Stefan Novak, conductor of the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra From Lipatti from Satu Mare, together with Manfredi Anna-Maria, found a solution to substitute either a smaller vocal range in some cases or to create an aria written for a tenor that is well sung by a baritone. _

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