“She accidentally sang Magyarország” (Hungary), instead of “Meseország” (Fairyland), and this mistake ruined her career. Romanian authorities labeled her as an irredentist, and she soon went down the rabbit hole, wrote the transindex.ro news portal in a recently published piece about Irén Lengyel, one of the greatest stars of Transylvanian musical theater in the period between the two World Wars.
The article aims to bring forth from the haze of oblivion the diva who was once an extraordinarily popular prima donna of operettas and whom newspapers never failed to mention when reviewing a performance. If Lengyel was in the cast, that was a guarantee for a full house, transindex.ro wrote.
“As 90 years have passed since then, we might never find out what truly happened on the day of November 28th in 1931, on the stage of the Arad theatre, but an alleged “slip-up” ended the career of one of the most talented musical actors of her time. Nevertheless, it is worth reconstructing at least some parts of her story from newspaper articles and recollections of family members,” transindex.ro pointed out.
A few weeks ago, the Azopan Photoarchive shared a photograph on Facebook from the 1930s, taken at a soccer game in Nagyenyed/Aiud/Straßburg am Mieresch. Professor Delia Enyedi, theater historian from the Babeș – Bolyai University of Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca), recognized actress Irén Lengyel (Irén Ilieș is her married name) among the spectators. As Irén Lengyel’s name is only known today by a few theater professionals, after consulting with Delia Enyedi, Azopan and Transindex.ro conducted their own research and published a detailed article about the late actress and singer.
Irén Lengyel was born in February 1900 in Rákospalota (a locality near Budapest, which today belongs to the Hungarian capital’s District XV) as a single daughter of a modest family. Her father, István, was an employee of the Hungarian Railway, while her mother was a homemaker. In a 1924 interview with the Vasárnapi Újság (Sunday’s Paper) of Kolozsvár, Lengyel said that she was considered a child prodigy from an early age. “I am a Budapest girl, so in my youth, I had gotten to play on amateur stages in Budapest and its surroundings,” she noted.
She studied at the acting school of one of the most prestigious dramatic theaters of Hungary, the Budapest Vígszínház, as she originally wanted to become an actress. But, according to her own recollection, after her graduation, the choirmaster of the Vígszínház, Károly Stefanidesz, asked her to sing at a rehearsal and immediately stated that she would be much more successful as an operetta singer than as an actress. Irén Lengyel’s first performance as a professional actress was in 1921 in Ungvár (a city which until the end of World War I was part of Hungary, then was declared part of Czechoslovakia in 1920. In 1938, it again was under Hungarian administration until after 1944 when it was given to Ukraine – editor’s note.).
“During the first act, I had such a tremendous stage fright that I was trembling. The public seemed to be rather distant too. But when the second act started, I suddenly got my voice back. Ever since then, I was cast as the prima donna in every operetta,” related Lengyel in the 1924 interview.
After Ungvár, it is hard to follow her career path. In 1924, the Vasárnapi Újság wrote that Irén Lengyel became a member of the theater company of Arad-Temesvár-Lugos, but she “most likely will not stay for long, as she had received a contract offer from the United States.” After the article was published, her fans overwhelmed her with letters, asking her not to leave her public. It seems that Lengyel was indeed truly fond of Transylvania, as she stayed, even though she kept receiving offers from Hungary as well.
The press also showed a vivid interest in the diva’s private life, discussing her suitors, admirers, and love affairs. For instance, the Vágóhíd of Kolozsvár wrote in 1924 that an elderly British gentleman in Temesvár, who was a wealthy company manager, offered a huge amount of money as a “love tip” to the actress. The newspaper also mentioned that the diva turned the man down, as she was interested in a young Jewish textile merchant whom she had met in Ungvár. The Budapest-based Magyar Hírlap recounted in 1926 that the problem with this love affair was that the merchant was married, and his wife did not take it very well, leading to quite the scandal. This is probably why she left Ungvár for Temesvár and then moved on to Kolozsvár in 1925, where she signed on to a company as prima donna “for a huge salary.”
She was not lacking in courting admirers in Kolozsvár either, but her love for the young merchant, named Feuerstein, or in other sources Fardenblum, did not fade. As Magyar Hírlap recounts, one day her lover told her that his wife had passed away in an insane asylum and asked for her hand in marriage. They got married in 1926, but after one short year of happiness, complications arose. In that year, Lengyel toured the whole of Transylvania, with ovations and adoration from both press and public. At the end of the year, her husband went home to Ungvár for a short visit and was jailed for bigamy. As Vágóhíd reported, a “benevolent” person gave the Aradi Közlöny a lurid piece about the badly ended love story, and the following night, Lengyel poisoned herself with 30 opium tablets. She ended up in critical condition, but her life was saved by a young man who donated his blood for her to receive a transfusion. Ten days after her suicide attempt, she was on stage again.
Then in 1927, she had a scandalous quarrel with one of her colleagues at the company, and after some chilly coverage by the press, she left Kolozsvár and went for a year to the Arad Company. In 1929, she got married to a landowner/lawyer from Kolozsvár, Victor Ilieş, and left the stage for a couple of years.
In 1931, she returned to the theater, and on November 28, 1931, she performed in the operetta The Bride from Hamburg on the Arad stage. That night was the start of her downfall: She allegedly sang one of the theme songs of the operetta with the original lyrics, which would translate as: “Hungary, you are pretty, you are beautiful.” This turned out to be a big mistake, as Romanian censorship had forbidden using the word Hungary/Magyarország; It should have been replaced with Fairyland/Tündérország.
Contemporary newspapers are not entirely sure what happened — if she had sung the original lyrics as a sheer reflex or tendentiously. Her son believed that she had deliberately changed the text, but he also admitted that Lengyel never commented on these happenings to the family. The Brassói Lapok wrote that the authorities at first were of the opinion that not the prima donna, but the lead tenor had committed the slip of the tongue. This newspaper wrote that even though this part was sung by six people altogether, Lengyel’s colleagues testified against her because of theater intrigues.
All in all, famous theater director Jenő Janovics declared that he was obliged to terminate her contract because of the “coercive circumstances.” At that time, Janovics directed the theaters of Arad, Temesvár, Kolozsvár and Nagyvárad. As he noted, “the existence of 300 employees was at stake.” The theatrical court of Kolozsvár rejected Lengyel’s action against the director and deprived her for three months of her permit to perform as an artist. Nevertheless, the family of Lengyel later declared that Jenő Janovics stood up for her in front of the authorities, and Lengyel was grateful for that her entire life.
This was the end of the theatrical career of the adored operetta diva, who never returned to the stage again. She lived her life as a wife and mother, spending summers at their property in Recekeresztúr. “She loved that place: She got up every day at dawn, went out horseback riding and managed the affairs of the property. She created a beautiful family home for us, every one of our eleven rooms had a different style of decoration,” her son Gabriel Ilieş told researcher Delia Enyedi.
In 1948, all of their properties were nationalized by the communist regime, and the family was put in a forced residence in Nagyenyed. That is where Irén Lengyel Ilieş died in January of 1980. “It was astonishing though, how fast the bad news traveled and how many people came to see her off on her last journey. Besides family members and friends, there were many people who had seen her on stage and admired her performances,” related her son. The once so famous prima donna, Irén Lengyel, lies in the historical Házsongárd cemetery in Kolozsvár, with her husband’s family name on the gravestone: Ilieș Iren Carolina.
Title image: A photo of the diva at a performance in the 1920s. The Azopan Photoarchive received this picture from Delia Enyedi, courtesy of the Ilieș family.
Source: Azopan PhotoArchives /Facebook
