Dance of the Vampires - in Budapest - Best of Critics

"Jim Steinman understands how to excite, enchant and terrify an audience." "Polanski and his local "governor", Cornelius Baltus has been in the grip of a vision, and it is based on this that he has demanded that his meticulously auditioned theater company work extra hard. It is the result of all the hard work that this performance comes to life." "All the original, basically expressionist-style choir dances provide an exciting spectacle, enthralling audiences with their infernal beauty, making them shiver. From the graves the vampires crawl out with stiff, angular movements, which turn into an increasingly wild dance carnival, making for an expressiveness beyond any previously seen danse macabre. The choreographer behind them is the fantastic American artist Dennis Callahan, who created the choreographies of the previous Vampire-musicals as well. The vampires' costume ball, and then the explosively temperamental group dance arrangements, each with a very distinctive character, with dancers subsequently dressed in disco outfits and black lacquer boots, turned into three of the best scenes of the show. Among the uniformly exquisite performances, the "black vampire's", Ákos Tihanyi's solo dance still manages to stand out." "The breathtaking, monumental and eerily beautiful castle sets designed by Kentaur do not follow the pattern of a medieval fortress. Instead, the Rococo-style jagged edges recall the Gothic period; on the turning stage, the ancient rooms of the labyrinth assume the luxury of a bygone era, which also surfaces in Kentaur's ball costumes, in which the corpses of vampires had been buried-dresses embodying, yet again, a wide range of styles. There is a mixture of majestic luxury and decay swirling about on the ghostly stage enveloped in darkness." "The "chief vampire" Count von Krolock is played by Géza Egyházi who until recently worked as a waiter. His voluminous voice fills the entire room, and his lyric tenor carries very far, raising high hopes for a singing career, especially in opera." "The professionalism of this production by PS Production is sweeping." (Katalin Metz: A Swirling Ball of Blood Suckers and Creatures of Darkness" - Magyar Nemzet - Hungarian Nation)

---

"a sensational, bloody professional musical performance"
[Trans.: There is a wordplay here. In Hungarian, "bloody professional" means that somebody is a extremely professional-what he does is in his fingertips.]
"the music itself is extremely effective, which in this category qualifies as a five-star rating."
"I was not bored even after seeing the show two times-even then I still have not depleted all that was left of my capacities."
"As for the theatre piece itself, the story is copyrighted from Roman Polanski's movie, converted into a musical written by Michael Kunze, with music composed by Jim Steinman, directed by Cornelius Baltus, who has already adapted the original, Polanski-directed Vienna show to other cities. So this is a tried-and-true adaptation, which defies Hungarians" famously slipshod attitudes, resulting in a tight production thanks to all the instruction and practice. The opus itself is also free of the looseness and aimlessness that makes the international mass productions of this genre so unbearably boring-one could count the exceptions on just a single hand. In terms of musical dramaturgy, the result is a tight construction, the editorial professionalism carries the piece forward with great momentum, from the Transylvanian inn to the final destination, the castle of the vampire count."
"Watching the production creates the illusion that the show simply "performs itself", as though it appeared on its own, without direction, in a soft, smooth, effortless and elegant manner. Of course, here, too, everything moves, but like the atoms posited by Democritus, they do it in a functional, purposeful way, just as they are supposed to. Here, all this is due to the work of choreographer Dennis Callahan, lighting designer Chris Ellis, and stage as well as costume designer Kentaur (whose Hungarian roots prove that professionalism and talent can coincide in a country like Hungary). The three of them represent extraordinary quality, setting on a pedestal a fourth one: the theatrical scenery created in the Magyar Theatre. Kentaur is incredible at conjuring up the outside of an inn, transformed into the interior; the exterior of the castle changing into the interior, into a ballroom, a sleeping chamber, a basement, a church, a gothic perspective, a curtain, stairs, a hallway lined with columns.

And I have not yet mentioned the entire graveyard framework silently turning from vertical to horizontal (and back), with vampire corpses resurrecting in wonderfully spectacular outfits and masks, performing a paradoxical dance in the avalanche of dazzling iridescent light, a virtuoso dance that is at once ponderous and light. Musicals were invented for scenes like this one."

"The production was created by a private production company in a rented theatre, which is useful itself, because it can shatter the myth of the permanent company, creating competition for ensembles specializing in similar musical genres. Instead of idle talk about the need for structural changes, here we have the beginnings of structural reform implemented in practice. To create the production, there was a casting phase, six hundred actors were auditioned for the parts. This has proven to be an advantage, because instead of the "let"s feature stars"approach, the production goes for the "let"s create stars"alternative, which fits much more naturally with the genre itself. A frightening thought occurred to me: if this had been a different company, who would have been the one obligatorily offered one part or another. Instead, thanks to the foreign influence, here was a group of maximally devoted casting members, and we are so much better off with their selections based on merit rather than star power.
"The choir (some of whose members are the leading roles" understudies), the dancers, and the soloists for both teams hard, contributing devoted and flawless performances. There is no excuse: there is work and there are results to show for it. The playback support is done with a restrained, delicate touch"conductor Géza Köteles is the master of acoustics. The swirl of sights and sounds is a source of great enjoyment for audiences ready to be dazzled."
"The location selected (or to be more exact: paid for)"to accommodate the show is the Pesti Magyar Theatre, whose operation in itself comes as a surprise: from the entrance all the way to the theatre scenery (more on this later), the building has shed its atmosphere of socialist realism as well as its aesthetic provincialism that had seemed immutable. Thinking about this transformation, a "summer story"that was the result of a business venture, could well have far-reaching consequences from the perspective of the establishment, the status quo."

"There are a number of lessons here for Hungarian theatres, disclosing half the list would be enough for them to want me beheaded. Preparations for the show began in 2004. It would deserve to be a huge success, a box office hit. An unusual location, high quality that is rarely found, perhaps more time is needed before word gets out enough. When I saw it for the second time, the audience jumped up during the applause. A spontaneous standing ovation, a month after the premiere. The tickets are not cheap, there is no government subsidy on them. It is worth setting some money aside. After publishing a list of scam restaurants that rip people off, there could be a published list of scam theatres, too. By saving up money not seeing two or three of the scams, one can then go and watch the Dance of the Vampires."
(Tamás Koltai: Standing Ovation - Élet és Irodalom - Life and Literature)

---

"Lawish scenic design, brilliant costumes, versatile stage-technology, melodic songs-no wonder that the effect is frenetic." "On the whole, producer dr. Edit Simon and her team pulled off an excellent performance. The legendary director Roman Polanski has every reason to be proud of the result. Also, this production has set the standards very high for Hungarian premieres. Mark my words: those who want to outdo the Dance of the Vampires (if that feat is possible at all), will have their work cut out for them." "After all this, the following detail will probably not come as a surprise to readers: the audience rewarded the Vampire-team not only with a stormy applause but they did it standing, hooting loudly. In English, we would call this a "standing ovation", and I think this piece rightly and fully deserved this form appreciation."
(Tamás Velkei www.kultissimo.hu)

---

"Two thumbs up for the Dance of the Vampires. On the stage of the Magyar Theatre, the musical of the summer heralded with extensive press coverage offers excellent quality and a pleasant evening for fans of the musical genre."

"Well done! Or perhaps "wow"or: "this really is something"! Because they really pulled off this production. The Dance of the Vampires is one of the biggest productions of this summer, and by big I don't just mean big because throughout the country, billboards listing Roman Polanski are inviting audiences. And I don't just mean big because the set does not fit behind the stage. (The backstage really can't fit the set: on the street corner, one can see the vampire coffins awaiting their turn.) It is the high quality of the production that calls for the adjective "big"in all senses of the word. Every detail of the performance shows that the creators have put their sweat and blood into this to make it a success. They probably knew that without blood, you can't have vampires. After the three-month rehearsals, they have nothing to be ashamed of. They have created a world class production.
"In the role of the chief vampire, Géza Egyházi is not a human but a vampire. His presence is so compellingly authentic that it does not even occur to one that he is human. Egyházi's diction is perfect, easy to understand, even with vampire teeth in his mouth: every word of his sparkles like a crystal. The casting is well thought through. From the plump wife of the inn keeper to the busty maid and the homosexual vampire, all bring on stage what their roles demand."

Two thumbs up for the theater crew's work, too-the stage setup backstage must require the sort of work speed and discipline that those sitting in the velvet chairs can hardly imagine."
"Boredom might descend on one during the intermission, but the entrance halls of the former National Theater, which have been decorated for this production, leave no room for boredom. There is a red glass chandelier, red carpets, red lamps, red and black furniture, candle holders as tall as a human, they make it seem as though we were walking along the rooms of the vampire castle.
"The performance can be viewed on two levels. One is that of superficial entertainment-there is glitz, a swirl of dance performances, songs, thousands of costumes (each individually designed), masterful use of lighting effects that could be taught in school, blood that seems real on a bitten neck. And then there is behind it the Polanski-style sense of humor. Those who know the work of the Oscar-winning director will notice the sense of absurd that is present in the piece and that is so characteristically Polanski."
"In sum, we should sit back and laugh, so the veins bulge on our necks… perhaps our neighbor has already succumbed to vampires and will bite us. That way, according to the vampire law, we are destined to roam the world forever… so we can then forever crave life, love, blood and a high-quality performance."
(Dávid Pénzes: The Theatrical Blood Suckers are a Success - www.gondola.hu)

---

"The fascinating dynamism of the choreography does, of course, speak well of Dennis Callahan's work, but the spectacle created by the dancers themselves is truly unusual. Even though what they offer is something that even in peripheral regions of the musical genre (Off Broadway, for example) is a basic, nonnegotiable requirement, but is something that we still marvel at on the Hungarian stage. It is one thing that the dancers all move in perfect unison, but what is remarkable is that they resume this rhythm without a hundredth of a second delay even after they have done a few beats of a "solo" performance. It is at these moments that one notices how much serious work is in and behind this production. Of course, if we know that the lead dancers include artists who have conquered the European stage (for example Ákos Tihanyi), then it is not so much the dancers' feat, but something else that comes to us as a surprise. Namely, why is it that we are surprised at something that is considered the order of things-elsewhere."

"We were promised that The Dance of the Vampires would be the flash of the year. We weren't misled. The production is perfect, for a short moment, the spectacular details recreate the atmosphere of Soho, the West End, and Broadway performances."
(János Tamási Orosz: Everyone Suck's Someone Else's Blood - Vasárnapi hírek - Sunday News)

---

"After a decade's triumphal march across Europe, this summer, Roman Polanski's monster musical has arrived in Hungary. The musical version of the famous 1967 film is not playing in one of the gleaming homes of the Hungarian musical theater, the Operett or the Madách Theatres, instead, it has set up camp in the theatre on Hevesi Sándor Square, in a building that is today haunted castle, an unmistakable relic of the socialist realism tradition. And it looks like it will be camping there for some time because the production is neither bloodless, nor pale, and its success is straight out guaranteed.
"There is rock music alternating with all-out musical parody. In all, the music works, as does the lyrics, written based on Polanski's film by Michael Kunze, the seasoned lyricist for Elisabeth and Mozart!. The Hungarian adaptation inhabits the rather small stage of the Magyar Thetare surprisingly well, the illusion is almost perfect."
"The result is extremely satisfying and inventive; for the most part, even the use of audience entrances (which was at points obviously a necessity) fits in well, without disrupting the performance. The direction by Cornelius Baltus, choreographies by Dennis Callahan and stage design by Kentaur are all outstanding. The actors should also be commended for putting in their talent to play their part in this bloody game filled with music."
"The show is entertaining, and there is almost as much ghostly stuff in it as in the fearsome Bran Castle of Dracula's."
(Ferenc László: Bestye's Blood Sucker - Magyar Narancs - Hungarian Orange)

---

"Several years of intensive work by PS Production (preceded by the phase of dreaming about realizing the project) has ripened into a spectacle and into a well-deserved steamy success on Friday, at the press premiere of The Dance of the Vampires at the former National Hungarian Theater. The building was completely renovated for the occasion."
"The stage set designed by Kentaur shows a great deal of ethnographic and architectural depth and authenticity. Every corner of the meticulously carved wooden house bears marks of this knowledge: both the lower and the upper levels can be turned in and out, to provide a versatile set for the story line."
"There are chases, frolicking, teasing among the characters: on the two sides of the bathing tub, young hearts are set aflame, a direct result of a sponge and warm water… Everyone is against everyone else-this could be the introduction to the piece, put in genre images. The creator, film and musical director Roman Polanski has given a free hand to his local resident Cornelius Baltus who has also directed several other productions; it is with the bath scene that he wants to juxtapose the sunny clarity of the real world with the eternal darkness of the vampires' realm. Because that realm is itself the mystery. Krolock (Géza Egyházi) "the King of the Night" (after all, he is a bit like the male equivalent of the demonic female character of The Magic Flute) is an incarnation of monstrous opulence, who creates smoldering desires, and embodies sly malice, a sentiment that he wants occasionally to overcome. There is a vast contrast between the peasant's hut with just a few rooms, fastened together from wooden beams, and the count's haunted castle with its countless rooms, crypts, corridors. There is a boundary, one that cannot be crossed, stretching between the two types of existence, the two species."
"With the choreography by Denis Callahan, the dancers-including Dániel Rákász, who became famous in the Megadance television production, whose roles include impersonating the count, and Dávid Baranya, impersonating, among others, Alfred-can create all the fearsome danse macabre of a graveyard, the stirring of the underworld, in which people had firmly believed even as recently as one hundred years ago. The costumes and make-up, also by Kentaur, likewise convey accurately and expressively the era and the continual dread of bloodshed spanning several centuries. The vampires are whirling about with machine-like movements, shrouded in haze (there is a lot of purple and white smoke) wearing crinoline skirts and powdered wigs from the Rococo, folk-influenced aristocratic outfits from the golden era of Transsylvania, wearing mold-eaten rags and 21st-century miniskirts in the finale painting a picture of the modern era that is not at all optimistic. Krolock's castle is itself ice cold denial. On Kentaur's drawing board, everything that Christianity has built up to celebrate the greatness of its religion-the Notre Dame, the cathedrals of Cologne and Milano-have turned negative, representing hell, enveloped in the ornate jagged edges of Gothic architecture. There are metal pillars, a pulpit with a skull, tooth ornaments, bat jaws hanging upside down, snarling skulls, violet purple lights, and illusions of perspectives collapsing onto us, each inhancing the feeling of monstrosity. The stage set is so great and so monumental that it cannot even be contained inside the theater: some of it was stored out in the street…"

"There is a great deal of unity in the performance. Everyone does uniformly well, but the most extraordinary phenomenon is Géza Egyházi, whose role also requires him to be just this: towering above the others by a great margin. The actors, who are not yet well known-not until now, that is: Géza Egyházi has been working as a waiter-have, in all its intensity, experienced the Polanski-adaptation about the eternal struggle between good and evil. It is not because of these actors-not at all!-that the Maestro has, for forty years, seen the world in this light, as irretrievably lost."
(Judit Szász: Our Vampires have Shown the True Color of Their Teeth– www.muvesz-vilag.hu) [Trans.: there is a wordplay here, the Hungarian locution for "show one's true colors" is literally "show the white of one's teeth".]

---

"Those who are eager to see a musical brimming with innovation in terms dance choreography, set design as well as acting, should not miss The Dance of the Vampires! It's dance time!"
(www.musicalinfo.hu)_

---

"All in all, we get to experience a spectacularly directed, high-quality performance, the music, the visuals, the choreography, and the acting performances are captivating!"
(Diána Benkő www.zene.hu)

---

„Both Cornelius Baltus, the director, and David Callahan, the choreographer have made a remarkable job while considering Master Polanski's instructions, not to mention Edit Simon's contribution, who has 'brought' the production for the Hungarian audience to Budapest."
"The singers and the dancers individually and also together have invited the audience to applaud, who awarded the cast a long standing ovation on the first night show."
(Go Travel Magazine)

---

Dance of the Vampires - in Budapest
The premier of the cult musical "Dance of the Vampires" promised to be a theater smash in the summer of 2007. The world wide hit musical is directed by Oscar winning director Roman Polanski and Cornelius Baltus. This not-every-day private production has been aging on the desk of the founder of Hungary's first musical agent producer Dr. Edit Simon. The producer along with opera singer and artistic director Balázs Póka has been working with Hungarian and international staff members to ensure that a worthy artistic musical will be born on June 30th at the Pesti Magyar Színház (Theatre). When the production was announced at the first press conference held at the elegant New York Palace Boscolo Hotel red champagne was served and guests were seated in red velvet seats by hostesses wearing red and black outfits. The professional macabre has begun. Servus spoke with Edit Simon.

Interest is already buzzing. Is the play really that good?
Yes, it is actually. When my husband, Póka Balázs, and I saw "Dance of the Vampires" in Vienna in 1997 I began toying with the idea of bringing it to Budapest; it is one of the most exciting musicals of our times. The play, which Polanski made into a film by the same name in 1967 has been a smash hit in Vienna, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Tokyo.

Who created it?
Polanski puts this production on stage with such actors as Michael Kunze, the most significant German lyricist. His co-director is Cornelius Baltus, who is the resident director of Disney's The Lion King in Hamburg. Dennis Callahan, choreographer from Radio City Music Hall, New York and who took active part in casting and conductor, composer and pianist Gabor Rivo, an Austrian of Hungarian decent, who is working on a Hungarian production for the first time is the musical director. Composer Jim Steinman, who happened to write the lyrics to the Bonnie Tyler hit "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" is also on board. This creative team has already had four smash hits, we are sure this will be their fifth!

Who is working on the Hungarian show?
The most talented set and costume designer in Hungary, Kentaur, the designer of several smash hit musicals both in Hungary and abroad. His Fearless Vampire Killers set plans have already been admired by the creators; we think the Hungarian production will be the most exciting of all in the history of the play. Tibor Miklós is working on the Hungarian version of the songs; he has been in the business for thirty years and has written the Hungarian lyrics to 18 Broadway and West End musicals.

What has been the most difficult ove the last two years, Polanski, rights or something else?
The securing the building and money the along with implementing a new theatrical model. That was the order things piled up. But now,things have cleared up. In addition to backers we managed to secure the significant support from and the trust of CIB Bank. I an assure you that audiences will receive a serious, high calibre production with Roman Polanski's genius, Cornelius Baltus' mastering knowledge, renown Europe wide and Dennis Callahan's exceptional professionalism. Polanski does not cut corners. All three will be back regularly to check on things.

Tell us briefly about the show?
It takes place at the end of the 19th century in wild Transsylvania. Professor Abronsius, the fearless vampire hunter and his young apprentice, Alfred are on the trail of vampires. They arrive at Chagall's inn and there are vampires in the near by castle. The romantic and emotional Alfred falls in love with the inn keeper's daughter, Sarah. The vampire count Krolock arrives at the sound of Sarah's innocent singing and he invites Sarah to a ball he is giving at his near by castle... The exciting story, with ample complications in the unique world of vampires, is spiced with the humours stumblings and bumblings of our vampire hunters.

How many performances are you planning on?
The premier will be on June 30th and following that there will be 100 shows. "Dance of the Vampires" will be the definitive show in summer in Budapest on the stage of the Pesti Magyar Színház. There will be English and German subtitles for foreign theatre goers. We welcome Servus readers to the show!

More »