King Pomade's New Cothes

Introduction

It is deeply symbolic and quite surprising that the most memorable opera of the 1950s, one that enjoyed both raucous popular success and official recognition, was a work in which the line is explicitly spoken: “The king has nothing on!” Pomádé could, of course, be seen and heard in many different ways, and thus it was not necessary to notice the shadow of anti-regime criticism, just as one did not have to hear, in the pair of swindling miracle-weavers, a parody of the Stakhanovite labour competition. After all, there is a folk-like tone here, a playful Boris Godunov caricature, Scottish and Chinese dance interludes, an instrumental “matinee,” jazzy, Western-style wit (at times even pointing ahead to the music of Three Nights of One Love), and a Ludas Matyi-style plebeian dispensing of justice… What is more, some contemporary critics even thought they could joyfully recognize a mockery of “ecclesiastical harmonies” in the musical depiction of the royal court.

On reflection, what may be even more surprising than the unanimity of its reception in 1953 is that Ránki’s comic opera, rewarded with the Kossuth Prize, later also proved to be viable on its own: detached from Gusztáv Oláh’s staging, and even from the equally frenetic, and deeply self-ironic, Pomádé portrayals of Mihály Székely and later József Gregor. True, this also required considerable changes to the work itself, which in its very first form was a one-act children’s opera for the Radio, then reached the stage of the Opera House as a three-act piece, before finally being skilfully condensed into two acts by the composer in 1968. In doing so, not only musical numbers were removed from Pomádé, but the work was also freed of certain plot strands and some excess material. Meanwhile, the opera’s humour and charm remained intact, and the fact that its title role continues to offer an endlessly rewarding opportunity for bass singers has most recently been amusingly demonstrated by the Pomádé portrayals of Krisztián Cser, András Palerdi, and László Szvétek.

Ferenc László

The music of the opera

The music of György Ránki’s opera is playful, understandable and enjoyable for young and adult audiences alike. It is rooted in the world of Hungarian folk songs, yet the most excit­ing parts of the opera are those where the music turns jazzy and is infused with comedy, caricature and irony. The composer is a master of character portrayal parodying to the hypocritical world of the royal court with his irreplaceable musical jokes. In the second scene of the opera, the parade of clothes is underlined by a series of exotic dances: a Scottish, an Arabic, and a Chinese dance. Among the three nations, Scotland and China are especially famous for their textile industry. Everyone has probably heard of the characteristic tartan fabric and about Chinese silk. First, a Scottish dance is heard, but we might wait in vain for the most famous Scottish instrument, the bagpipe, to sound. This dance, with its jumping rhythm, is more reminiscent of Scottish jigs.

The Scottish dance is followed by a mysterious Arabic one. György Ránki studied the music of distant, exotic peoples a lot. In his life, he travelled to India, Vietnam, Japan, and a few years before his death he also visited China. He achieves the oriental sound with various means. We immediately jerk up when we hear the peculiar, outlandish melody, which is built from intervals unusual in European dance music (tritone, extended second). It is also characteristic that the oboe, the English horn and the piccolo do not step from one note to another, but glide. Of course, not only the melody, but also the accompaniment contributes to drawing an exotic picture. The rhythmic accompaniment of Arabic music is evoked by the continuous drumming of the timpani and tambourine as well as the rhythmic pluck­ing of stringed instruments. Finally, another unusual idea: the melody of the movement moves only on the notes A-D sharp minor (Disz in Hungarian)-A-B-E-B-A, which, when read together, gives the name of the capital of Ethiopia (Addis Ababa).

With the last dance, we are transported to China. Two types of characters appear here. The first is a sonorous music, which owes its metallic lustre to the sounds of the triangle and the xylophone. In the second, slower part of the dance, the English horn plays a melan­cholic melody. It is initially sung in a subdued voice and then more and more passionately, reminiscent of Hungarian folk songs. Chinese music, like the ancient melodies of Hungar­ian pentatonic folk music, consisting of only five notes.

The weavers’ craft

Everyone knows the answer to the riddle “Weaves and spins, but not a weaver, what is it?”: a spider! But what or who is a weaver? A common surname (Weaver = Takács) in Hungary indicates that it was once a profession of many people. From the riddle, we can guess that just like the spider, the weaver also weaves and spins. Thus, it must be a woman’s job, because who has ever seen a man doing something like this!?

However, weaving was by no means an easy job, although women and girls were not left out, either: they made the yarn used for weaving. But let’s start at the beginning! The vertical loom used in ancient times was replaced in the Middle Ages by a large, horizontal wooden structure, which made it possible to weave much faster. At that time, most clothes in Hungary were made of linen and hemp. Plants with fine fibres were soaked, broken, and then spun until the they were made into yarn. All of this was traditionally a woman’s task: each peasant family planted as much hemp as the women could spin in winter, when work in the fields was not available. The yarn was taken to the master weaver of the village, who, with the help of his apprentice, wove 3 to 4 meters of smooth canvas every day. If the customer wanted a more colourful material, the master decorated the canvas with red or blue cotton thread.

The work of the weavers was governed by strict rules: the apprentice had to wander from master to master for three years to learn all the ins and outs of the trade. Only then could he enter the guild as a bachelor, and he had to work for a long time before he could become a master. Weavers put a lot of value on honour, so they carefully made sure that all masters used the same measuring units, because the canvas was sometimes sold according to its length, sometimes according to its weight. Of course, the richer wore clothes made of finer materials: silk, brocade, velvet, lace, the raw materials of which were brought from far away, China or India, for example and then sewn, embroidered and embellished with pre­cious stones and pearls. Such outfits cost a real fortune and took a long time to make – it shows King Pomade’s foolish impatience that he allows only one day for the new outfit to be made.

Nowadays, it is machines mostly that do the work of the weavers of yore, because it is much faster and cheaper. Machine weaving is more uniform, but if you look closely at a piece of fabric, you can still see how the thin threads cross each other.