The Champion
Based on Il tabarro and other Puccini’s operas
Music: Antal Kéménczy
Cast
Judit Rezes, Ervin Nagy, Adél Jordán, Zoltán Bezerédi, Anna Pálmai, Ferenc Elek, Zoltán Rajkai
Creatives
Set-design | Zsolt Khell |
Costumes | Mari Benedek |
Director of chorus | Gizi Bagó, Bea Berecz |
Music | Antal Kéménczy |
Piano | Antal Kéménczy, Balázs Futó |
Dramaturg | Éva Enyedi |
Assistant | Réka Budavári |
Directed by | Béla Pintér |
“In the spring of 2015, Gábor Máté invited me to direct at the Katona József Theatre. I asked for time to consider. One evening, on the balcony at home,
I was listening again to Puccini’s opera Il tabarro, when suddenly a story set in modern-day Hungary occurred to me. I accepted the invitation.
I was not familiar with any Hungarian version. I had always heard Puccini’s opera in Italian. Thus, my imagination was unbound, and I could easily
substitute in the characters and situations I had created. Later, reading the Hungarian text, it became completely clear that I did not wish to preserve a single sentence. After all, my story takes place in an imaginary small town in Hungary in the late 2010s, and the language took shape appropriately.
The contrast between the glorious music and profane content provides a constant source of humour. At the same time, the natural speech and gestures make the harrowing content more accessible."
Béla Pintér