ABSTRACT
In Hungarian cultural memory, the Budapest Operetta Theatre is considered the hub of the Hungarian operetta tradition, gaining the status of ‘Hungaricum’ (a collective term indicating typical Hungarian attributes, uniqueness, and quality) in 2013. However, this essay reveals the contradictions hidden in this interpretation by exploring the cosmopolitan roots of the theatre, outlining the key role that US investment and management techniques played in its formation and operation.
The first part focuses on Ben Blumenthal, a New York-based theatre and film producer. After buying the most elegant theatre of Budapest (Vígszínház) in 1921, Blumenthal established the Budapest Operetta Theatre in 1922 and became its leaseholder. Why did the US influence in the Budapest musical theatre field grow in the early 1920s? How did the Hungarian politicians and press react to Blumenthal's growing influence? What were the characteristics of this direct interaction between the Broadway and the Budapest operetta fields? The second part illustrates the difficulties these interactions generated by examining the Hungarian reception of Hello America (1925), a Broadway-style revue, which was directed by Jack Haskell (1886–963) and was intended to represent the first US-Hungarian creative collaboration. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the picture-based aesthetics of the revue and the traditional comic acting of Hungarian operetta style were not compatible. In addition, its Broadway business model of a huge investment followed by a long theatrical run proved inapplicable to the relatively small Budapest musical theatre market (Balme, 2005).
