Zabudnutá osobnosť slovenského divadelníctva Jaroslav Hanka a jeho úprava Chalupkovho Kocúrkova
A Forgotten Figure of Slovak Theatre Jaroslav Hanka and his adaptation of Chalupka’s Kocúrkovo

Summary/Abstract: Jaroslav Hanka (1893 – 1970) is one of the overlooked figures in Czechoslovak cultural relations and in the history of Slovak theatre. He was a poet, playwright, publicist, theatre critic, and the author of theatrical adaptations of Slovak literary classics. This study focuses on his version of Chalupka’s Kocúrkovo (Košice 1924, Bratislava 1925), which he transformed into a grand operetta featuring music by Jaromír Weinberger and ballet interludes. With hindsight, the adaptation may be interpreted as an unsuccessful, yet generically unique, attempt to create a libretto drawing on Slovak comedic material – an intertextual transcription based on a tendentious updating of the original work. Hanka’s adaptation of Kocúrkovo aimed to contribute to the domestic, emerging operetta genre, which was to attract, in cooperation with other Czech artists (Oskar Nedbal, Achille Viscusi, Jaroslav Jareš) and in competition with the Hungarian and the German tradition, even non-Slovak audiences to the theatre.

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