MAGYAR MELODY, Avalon L.O.S. Stanley Hall, Norwood Junction, Sat 22 April 1978.

Magyar Melody was obviously written to enchant, and it succeeds brilliantly in what it sets out to do. I had not seen it before, but I was enchanted with it. It is one of the most delightful and pretty “boy meets girl" stories I have come across for a long time, made the more delightful by its utter predictability. It also has the equally familiar secondary love affair of the soubrette and the silly twit, its charm is probably somewhat fragile, and given a poor performance could be quite excruciating. It was safe in the hands of Avalon however, whom I have only seen once before, but who have already impressed themselves upon me as one of the most dedicated and "professional" groups I know. They really deserve to be heard by a wider audience than they are able to entice to the charming, but small and out of the way Stanley Hall. The music has the requirements needed for operetta, tunes you can come away humming. I recognized at least two, "Music for Romance" and "Mine alone". M. D. Brian Cooper managed to get a rich sound out of the small orchestra, and one felt no sense of deprivation. My main adverse criticism was the chorus diction - in most of the choruses I could not understand what they were singing, elsewhere I was conscious of the high quality of the lyrics of Eric Maschwitz and George Posford. Kate Bawcutt's production was sensible and unspectacular. There were one or two doubtful points however. The prolonged search by the Mayor for his hat seemed unnecessarily laborious and the exit of the Empress at the end of Act 2 was badly staged. I found it quite impossible to believe that the Archduke could not see her - as he was supposed not to do, Was it really necessary to make Count Ferenc so unpleasant? It made his pursuit of Roszi rather unsavoury, and the whole point of her relationship with him surely is that although she repeatedly turns him down, she does consider him? Tony Brumby's choreography was a high point of the production - not the less for his own fleeting appearances on stage in the troop of gipsy dancers. It was a pity circumstances had prevented him from playing a role, still a little of Tony is better than no Tony at all. Elizabeth Mash (Rozzi Belvary) had personality, good looks and a charming voice everything necessary in fact for a soprano heroine. Clyde Davids turned in a stunning performance as the Archduke Michael disguised as a music composer. He looked 25 (with the light in front of him) and sang and acted with his heart - in short, one's operetta juvenile-lead dream. Sue Davids made the most of the vivacious Julika, and her opposite number John Bruce as the nit-wit Nikki was extremely good though he could have afforded to overplay the comedy a bit more. Frank Chivers was just right as the seedy theatrical manager, and Terry Shepherd did sterling service both as a dancer, and in three small, contrasted character roles. Shiela Wingrove's Empress Elizabeth almost came off, one could have believed in her as a countess or a duchess, but somehow she wasn't quite an empress. One looked in vain for the total imperiousness of a woman used to having everyone obey her slightest whim. It was probably the most difficult role in the piece - she must have a strange mixture of warmth and coldness, here we had the womanly warmth but not the imperial coldness. MICHAEL WALTERS

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