Even though The Haunted Manor is considered Moniuszko’s most remarkable work, it is still hard to fathom the fact that the opera has been put before the Warsaw public over 1,500 times already. Written after Poland had been wiped from the map of Europe, the masterpiece enabled the desolate nation to go on a sentimental journey back to the time when its motherland was self-governing and free from external peril. A praise for family and native traditions evoking the happy days of yore won the hearts of the Polish audience yearning for its heritage. Before the tsarist censors realised the opera had been written to lift the Poles’ spirits and banned it after the third show in 1865, large portions of the public had managed to see the production and spread the word about the hope of restoring freedom that it offered. Unfortunately, Moniuszko did not live to see the next staging. A hundred years since its world premiere, the opera opened the first season at the newly restored Warsaw opera house following its destruction during the Second World War. It was no coincidence: in the course of the intervening decades The Hunted Manor became a symbol of Polish patriotism, Poland, and the strength of her nation that has risen from ashes many times it its history. 

The Haunted Manor

Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera

Dr. Arnold and Emma Bahlmann, DIBAG Industriebau AG, Rolf and Caroli Dienst, Vera and Volker Doppelfeld-Stiftung, Dr. Dierk and Veronika Ernst, Monika and Karl Ertl, Christa Fassbender, Dr. Joachim Feldges, Friends of the Nationaltheater, Dietlinde and Carl-Peter Forster, Oliver and Claudia Götz, Regina Hesselberger, Stefan and Maria Holzhey, Dirk and Marlene Ippen, Christine and Marco Janezic, Dr. Hans-Dieter Koch and Silvie Katalin Varga, Christof Lamberts, LfA Förderbank Bayern, Christiane Link, The Opera Foundation, A+Olivia Rogowski, Schwarz Foundation, Dr. Martin Steinmeyer, Georg and Swantje von Werz, Oliver and Kaori Zipse

Passion Concert

Allerheiligen-Hofkirche

The somnambulistic piece Matsukaze, a reworking of theJapanese Nō theatre material of the Master Zeami from the 15th century, recounts the unhappy love of two sisters, the salt water maidens, Matsukaze and Murasame, for the courtier, Yukihira. When he must leave one day, he promises them he will return, for his longing will call him back. But, he dies. The two sisters are left imprisoned by their yearning, become ghosts, return to the living again and again. Only a monk can help them out of their entrapment. Hosokawa’s composition transforms nature moods into tender, loving sounds, plays with silence, traces the passage of time and non-passage of intimate feelings, madness, the relationship between past, present and future, between the fundamental connection of human existence and nature. The world premiere was celebrated in 2011 at the Opéra La Monnaie in Brussels. For the Bayerische Staatsoper production, the director duo Lotte van den Berg and Tobias Staab will now collaborate for the first time with the visual, internationally active artist, Alicja Kwade.

Paweł Horodyski

Events

Upcoming events

17 - 29 Jan, 2025

The Haunted Manor · Polish National Opera

Mar 15, 2025

Passion Concert · Bayerisches Staatsorchester

3 - 11 May, 2025

Matsukaze · Bayerische Staatsoper

Future and recently performed repertoire

Singer in The Last Sorrows of the Redeemer by Bach

Bayerisches Staatsorchester

Singer in Trio Sonata in D minor by Bach

Bayerisches Staatsorchester

About

Paweł Horodyski hasn't added a bio