Helga Koválovská: Cabaret has an atmosphere you won't experience anywhere else

Dracula's Adriana, Miss Lynch or the holy nun, Helga Koválovská is a woman of many faces in the truest sense of the word. Whether she plays the main character on the largest Czechoslovak musical stages or sings in the intimate atmosphere of a cabaret club, she always fully immerses herself in her role and transports you to the center of the action. Even though she is increasingly exchanging the theater stage for the show jumping track, she throws herself into all roles, radiating incredible energy and unmistakable charm. You only need a few minutes of her latest cabaret show, A Night on Broadway: The Only Helga Show, to see what we're talking about. We first meet Helga at the Red Cat Cabaret . It's as if the magician Woland from Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita has moved her from the Roaring Twenties in New York to a small courtyard in contemporary Bratislava with a snap of his fingers. Obchodná Street, illuminated by signs and neon, truly hides our little Bratislava New York from the time of Prohibition.

Many people think of striptease and karaoke when they hear the word cabaret, but they couldn't be more wrong. It's a mix of dance, singing, and acting in an intimate atmosphere that you really won't experience anywhere else. The viewer gets quality art, where they can have a much more relaxed time than in the theater. Moreover, unlike regular theater or musicals, the viewer is an active part of the performance, not just a passive spectator. You can see us straight in the face, we're standing close to you, and that makes it all the more interesting.

This is how our conversation begins with Helga, who has been part of Red Cat Cabaret since its beginnings. "I got into cabaret in a very interesting way. When the musical Nuns ended, I started working with horses and making a living from them, but I still missed my stage. I wanted to continue to make people happy with my singing. By chance, after years at the hairdresser's, I met Vaš Púčik, whom I have known since the musical Pomáda. He was preparing a cabaret with Lucie Siposová and was looking for someone like me. Although the beginnings of the cabaret were not easy, people gradually started to spread among themselves how great and different it was to visit the cabaret and today we are sold out months in advance. Many have discovered that all you need to do is come in a good mood and be ready to have fun, not be entertained, we will take care of the rest. Today we have regular audiences who have seen all the performances and new ones are still discovering us."

However, according to Helga, cabaret is something completely different for her than musicals. Months of rehearsals suddenly become just a few weeks, and you have to study the character in the shortest possible time. "Furthermore, working with the audience is completely different than with musicals, often even more difficult. You never know who is sitting there and what their mood is, so you have to be able to guess the people in the audience. I admire Lucia Siposová, who communicates with them the most, and our artistic director, the aforementioned Vašo Púčik, who actively performs in many cabaret shows, is equally versatile."

Helga can be seen in four Red Cat Cabaret shows today. But is there one that is her top show? "Although each of them is special in some way, for me personally it is the latest one, Noc na Broadway: The Only Helga Show . The idea for this show came about when our young bandleader Ľuboš Janák and I started thinking about the repertoire with the band and working on songs, which eventually led to my show. I owe it to the director, artistic director and friend Vaš Púčik, who gave it a complete shape and I get to sing with a live band, the Luis Cabaret Orchestra. It's all about teamwork, having a good team of people is the foundation. And Red Cat Cabaret has that. The others are also somewhat of my favorites. In Horror Show, I went back a bit to my past, because I play a nun, just like in Teatro Wüstenrot, where I played her for 15 years in the musical of the same name. And then, of course, Studio 34. It is one of the first performances of Red Cat Cabaret, in which I started my performance on the cabaret stage in October 2016. However, it also contains songs from the 70s, which I feel very good in. The fourth performance in which I play, New York City Night Show, Anča Pagáčová and other dirty stories, was based on the book by Lucie Siposová, Hello, my name is Anča Pagáčová. There I play the character of Melissa and I really enjoy it, she is a spicy woman who enjoys life without obligations and talks about it without inhibitions. You have to see it and maybe you will blush. Helga's career was destined for singing and theater since childhood. She was always singing as a child and her artistic life took off rapidly. But why did Helga choose musical as her genre? "I love singing and acting. You get into different characters and start to experience them internally. It's an indescribable feeling when you really experience what the character is doing, and you convey an emotional and authentic experience to the audience. Often there's so much adrenaline that needs to go away before you can go to bed that you have to just sit there for a long time after the performance. A musical completely absorbs you, whether it's on stage or studying a character. How many times have I forgotten to get off the bus because I was so absorbed in studying my role." Not only musicals, but also horses play a huge role in Helga Koválovská's life. She has been devoted to them, as well as singing, since she was a child. While the world knows her as Dracula's Adriana, insiders see her as a former national vaulting champion (acrobatic exercises on a bareback horse, ed.). Photo source: Red Cat Cabaret archive (author: Mako Hindi), Helga Koválovská archive