Dracula, Krzysztof Pastor’s choreography set to a selection of music by Wojciech Kilar, became a ballet sensation of 2018. Commissioned by the West Australian Ballet, it was given its debut in September 2018 in Perth. The company wanted to expand its repertoire to include a ballet adaptation of Bram Stoker’s world-famous horror novel and its 1992 Oscar-winning film version by Francis Ford Coppola with a score written by Wojciech Kilar. Having accepted the commission, Krzysztof Pastor decided to go beyond Coppola’s movie and showcase a wider selection of Kilar’s music in his production, which is set to a carefully arranged score put together by Michael Brett that features themes from Kilar’s soundtracks for Wajda’s The Promised Land and Chronicle of Amorous Accidents, Hoffman’s Leper, Zanussi’s Wherever You Are, and Majewski’s Jealousy and Medicine, as well as such self-standing works as Kościelec 1909, Symphony No. 5 (Advent Symphony), and Concerto for Piano and Orchestra

Dracula

Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera

There are many ways to express solidarity. The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra represents moral support for a nation at war and material assistance for the musicians. The ensemble was assembled in 2022 at the initiative of the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Polish National Opera in Warsaw. It includes refugees forced to flee their country for safety, Ukrainian members of European orchestras, and musicians of Ukraine-based ensembles. The proceeds from the tour will be used to help struggling artists, yet the symbolic dimension of the endeavour is just as important—the sense of togetherness that music can create.

Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra

After 13 years, Mariusz Treliński again reaches for Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov , an operatic historical fresco, but also a psychological drama revealing the mechanism of gaining and consolidating power taken over by violence and deceit. The director first approached Boris Godunov in 2008, first staging it at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theater in Vilnius, and a year later at the National Opera in Warsaw. The press wrote then that in Treliński's interpretation it was "a cold and raw, but suggestive story about a ruler killed by remorse" ("Ruch Muzyczny") and "a story about the rise of the tsar's power and his fall" (Gazeta Wyborcza). 

Boris Godunov*

We especially invite people whose children will attend opera knowledge classes for the youngest to participate in this project. A series of nine lectures will allow listeners to become acquainted with basic issues related to opera, such as the role of the conductor in the orchestra and the process of creating scenography. Each of the topics discussed will be presented by a specialist in a given field: a director, an opera soloist, a conductor, a costume designer and many other artists whose joint efforts lead to the creation of an opera performance. The classes will be divided into two semesters, and their participants will receive a special index in which the lecturers will enter their grades. Disciplined students will receive a diploma at the end of the course, which will make them look at the opera from a new perspective when they sit in the audience of the Grand Theater.

University Of Opera Knowledge For Adults

Frivolous comedy or immoral farce? Controversy accompanied Così fan tutte almost from the beginning of the opera. The work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose world premiere took place in 1790 in Vienna, was apparently inspired by a real moral scandal that occurred in Paris at that time. Lorenzo da Ponte's libretto focuses on one thread. Don Alfonso challenges his younger colleagues: he bets with Ferrando and Guglielmo that their lovers - Dorabella and Fiordiligi - will not be able to remain faithful when they unexpectedly leave, leaving behind their fiancées. The intrigue is made more credible by the fact that Austria was then involved in a war with Turkey. The maid Despina is also involved in the men's conspiracy. After a sad farewell to their loved ones, Ferrando and Guglielmo return disguised as Albanians to test women's constancy.

Così Fan Tutte

The title of the festival inauguration encourages you to surrender to joyful feelings. Why? On the one hand, the Warsaw Sinfonia Varsovia orchestra continues its jubilee series of concerts to celebrate its 40th anniversary, on the other hand, the reason for celebration is the unique coincidence of three anniversaries at the turn of April and May. It is worth recalling that the new orchestral ensemble under the baton of Lord Yehudi Menuhin was constituted in the last days of April 1984. May 7 marks the bicentenary of the premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, one of the most important works in the history of music, whose final movement, Ode to Joy, outlines an innovative democratic project. Finally, May 1 marks 20 years since Poland's accession to the European Union.

Oh, Joy! Inauguration Of The Sinfonia Varsovia Festival In Your City

In the 2021/2022 season, the stage of the Grand Theater - National Opera was taken over by Barbara Radziwiłłówna thanks to her concert performance of Henryk Jarecki's opera. This time, an equally legendary figure will appear - Beatrix Cenci. However, while Barbara is shown as innocence incarnate who becomes a victim of crime, Beatrix is ​​her opposite - a pure heroine forced to commit a wicked act.

Beatrix Cenci (concert Version)

Premiere preludes are a different look at the creator of the opera: a composer creating a great vocal, symphonic and theatrical form, whose personality we want to show from a slightly different side, in a modest, intimate statement in which he addresses his message directly to our feelings and hearts. These concerts are therefore usually solo or chamber, most often in one movement; they gather music lovers and opera lovers, sometimes surprising them and maybe even surprising them with the composer's different face. Touching the subtle matter of the highest quality chamber music is an excellent introduction to the musical aura - and not only - of the premieres that define the program axis of the season.

Premiere Prelude: Różycki

Głos Holoubka był muzyką; jego polszczyzna, którą władał wirtuozersko, przysporzyła mu opinię mistrza mowy polskiej i uczyniła pierwszym z laureatów nagrody tak właśnie nazwanej. Jego Wielka Improwizacja bywa „samplowana” przez współczesnych reżyserów teatralnych jako niepodważalny wzorzec monologu scenicznego. Ten wybitny aktor był też inteligentem par excellance, co w dzisiejszych czasach nieczęsto idzie w parze. Wychowany w kulcie muzyki („Ojciec mój szalał na temat opery, kupował płyty z muzyką operową, no i od dziecka wsłuchiwałem się… Znam kilkanaście co najmniej oper na pamięć, tak że mogę sobie podśpiewywać.”), w szkole teatralnej poznał Artura Malawskiego, który uczył solfeżu i zabierał studentów na koncerty. Holoubek stał się wielbicielem polifonii barokowej ze względu na jej formalną dyscyplinę i swoiście rozumianą ponadczasowość: „Kończy się granie, a ja dalej ją słyszę”. Nieco mniej cenił sobie muzykę doby romantyzmu, kiedy, jak powiadał „przestaję słuchać muzyki, a zaczynam podziwiać kunszt kompozytora”. Z muzyką współczesną miał największy kłopot, ale czynił wyjątki dla tych twórców, w których dziełach „wyraźnie przebija się geniusz” – np. zaprzyjaźnionego Witolda Lutosławskiego, odwiedzanego przez aktora w „wyciszonej pracowni, w której było słychać własny bronchit”. Od lat rokrocznie TW-ON organizuje wieczór z ulubioną muzyką wielkiego aktora.

Gustaw Holoubek In Memoriam

Interest in the work of Mieczysław Weinberg - a fascinating composer who creates at the intersection of Polish, Jewish and Russian cultures - means that his works appear not only on CD recordings and in the repertoire of philharmonic halls, but also on theater stages. His operatic work is becoming better known ( The Passenger could be seen on our stage), and it is time to discover Weinberg's ballet - The Golden Key, intended for children .

Pinocchio

If we were to try to define what Astor Piazzolla's tangos are, two associations come to mind: an incredibly delicate touch of the most subtle spheres of human feelings and music that satisfies even the most demanding listener. Astor Piazzolla is already a classic among composers, who permanently entered the Argentine tango into the canon of world music. He was indeed a pioneer in his era, but in his wildest dreams he never imagined what fame and splendor the following decades would bring him.

Argentine Tango – From Buenos Aires To Warsaw

It is said that good film music is one that does not dominate, does not interfere with the reception and is almost inaudible. And yet it is memorable, adds color to the film and gives it the right atmosphere. It creates a mood and evokes emotions in the recipient.

Melodies Of The Big Screen – Film Music

What circumstances could push a mother to commit infanticide? The story of Medea has fascinated artists for centuries, including opera creators. The libretto of Luigi Cherubini's work, performed in Paris in 1797, condenses a story known from mythology. The beginnings of the relationship between Jason and Medea, the golden fleece and the Argonauts are only mentioned in it. We are thrown into the middle of a love conflict: Dircé, filled with anxiety, is preparing to marry Jason, who has abandoned his former lover for her. The celebration is interrupted by Medea trying to get her husband and children back. The rejected woman, deprived of all hope, plans revenge - she offers Dircé a crown and a dress soaked in poison, and she herself murders her sons.

MEDEA

Premiere Prelude: Cherubim

South African soprano Pretty Yende is one of the most sought-after singers in the world. Her international career began with winning the prestigious Operalia competition in 2011, and since then her star has been shining brightly. Yende's concert in 2022 on the stage of the Grand Theater - National Opera with the participation of baritone Artur Ruciński was a huge success, this time she will be accompanied by American tenor Michael Fabiano, star of the Metropolitan Opera, who will perform in Warsaw for the first time.

New Year's Eve Gala

Children from the "Artos" Choir operating at the Grand Theater - National Opera will take viewers on a magical journey to the Snowy Land of Music and Dance. On Skoraczewski under the direction of Danuta Chmurska and little dancers from the Artistic Studio of Katarzyna Białkowska-Madej.

Winter Concert

"The labyrinth is a symbol not only of my work, but also of the entire creative process. This circulation around the familiar paths of the labyrinth, where you often find yourself in front of a green wall and you don't know whether to turn left or right. Then you usually have to turn around. Go back to be able to move forward. This is what wandering in the labyrinth of an artist who is actually constantly looking for perfect solutions. But people who are only interested in progress in music do not see it. – Krzysztof Pendereck

Krzysztof Penderecki In Memoriam

A form of a concert of Polish music for four hands on the occasion of November 11, Independence Day, with conducting and a multimedia show about Polish composers - Chopin, Paderewski, Zarębski and the history of Poland.

Polish Music For Four Hands

Meetings with Muzalinda is a series of musical fairy tales intended to familiarize the youngest audience with the stage of the Grand Theater - National Opera. Muzalinda is a cheerful and slightly crazy princess in love with music, dancing and singing. With her, in her kingdom full of wonders, event participants encounter various creatures: fairies, witches, dwarves and elves, with different characters, preferences and humors

Meetings With Muzalinda

Blind Track is a unique work - an opera on a contemporary, even current topic, written by two outstanding Polish artists: Krzysztof Meyer and Antoni Libera.

Blind Track

Premiere Prelude: Meyer

An educational project with the participation of opera and ballet soloists and instrumentalists of the Grand Theater - National Opera orchestra. Encounters with music combined with educational games are intended to prepare future viewers for contact with the world of opera. Participants have the opportunity to learn about the vocal capabilities of an opera singer and the sound of instruments used by musicians during opera and ballet performances performed on the theater stage. Children taking part in the event will hear more than one story read by a narrator accompanied by presented musical instruments. This will allow them to see the great importance of music in a theater performance. Often, the presented instruments are put at the disposal of young listeners, as the presenters encourage active participation in the meeting. To encourage the future audience of the Opera, we invite not only the youngest, but also their guardians.

Musical Morning

Solidarity can be shown in various ways. The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra is both spiritual support for the fighting country and a material expression of help for musicians. The ensemble was established in 2022 thanks to the initiative of the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Grand Theater - National Opera in Warsaw. The orchestra is composed of refugees forced to leave the country for security reasons, Ukrainian musicians who are members of European orchestras and instrumentalists playing in national bands. The funds collected during the tour go to artists in need, but the symbolic dimension of the performances is equally important - the sense of unity that can be felt thanks to the power of music.

Chaos has broken out in Noisy Town. Fairy tale characters spilled out of books and are all over the place. The Red Ridding Hood is horsing around with Hansel and Gretel, two Gingerbread men, the Wolf, the Granny, and... just come and see for yourself! The only people who can bring back order is a pair of brave Agents. Will they manage can save the day?

Who's Mixing Up The Fairy Tales?

A great triumph of Polish highland music – the concert has toured the world stages in more ways than an echo for years, evoking genuine admiration, but it always returns to Warsaw. Music by three distinguished Polish composers: Karol Szymanowski, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and Wojciech Kilar, was combined into a highland-themed musical stage event. Szymanowski highly appreciated the voices of Podhale, chiefly for their 'primal savagery, painstaking forging of shapes that never hopelessly drown in a bloodless sea of ​​sentimentality, and finally – their inherent imaginative malleability'. Górecki’s fascination with folklore goes further, ‘flowing from the highlands over to the sea’, as evidenced by his song collection My Vistula, Gray Vistula. Kilar, on the other hand, has composed Orava –  the greatest of symphonic hits inspired by the ‘Krzesany’ highland dance theme. The artists performing in the show come from different worlds. Sebastian Karpiel-Bułecka, who has flirted with pop music, is joined by Janusz Olejniczak, Atom String Quartet and the NeoQuartet. It will without a doubt be an eventful evening. Please leave your highland shepherd’s axes (or ‘ciupagas’, as we refer to them in Polish) in the cloakroom.

The Voices Of The Mountains

‘The extraordinary power encapsulated in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, one of the more recognisable pieces of classical music worldwide, touches the imagination of the audience is a straightforward and open manner from the first listen. Combined with an almost contemporary score, the medieval phrases and texts communicate a universal message about the laws of this world that apply to the mighty and small, those at the beginning of their life and those who are near their end. Orff thought in music, in words, and in theatre. The sense of his works is inscribed in overlapping dimensions,’ wrote Waldemar Dąbrowski, general manager of the Polish National Opera.

Carmina Burana (blink Of An Eye)

Dead End is a singular work: an opera exploring current issues, written by two prominent Polish artists, Krzysztof Meyer and Antoni Libera.

Krzysztof Meyer is considered one of the most prominent present-day composers. He was a noteworthy student of Krzysztof Penderecki, then a pupil of Nadia Boulanger and Witold Lutosławski, and finally, a professor of composition of the Cologne University of Music, now retired. As an eminent expert on Shostakovich, he penned a monograph on the composer and composed the third act of The Gamblers. A composer of mainly large-scale symphonic pieces and chamber music, he also wrote a youthful opera after Stanisław Lem’s The Cyberiad. The composer has a number of prestigious awards to his name.

Dead End

Opera lessons Recitative, Aria, Bel Canto given by our artists are truly the inside scoop. Can you imagine have better teachers? After all, who knows more about opera than those who experience it on a daily basis? Our artists will be the ones to introduce you to, and even demonstrate, the basics of  opera terminology. You will also explore the history of opera, a unique genre that combines words, music, visual arts, movement, gesture, and acting. The artists/instructors will also share with you their own experiences from the opera stage. Each class is an opportunity to listen to a short live recital performed by an opera soloist.

Recitative, Aria, Bel Canto, Or Opera 101

Opera Sound Hunters is an educational game for children designed to help them get acquainted with the magical atmosphere of opera with the help of sounds produced by musical instruments and human voices. Playing children get to know that different musical instruments that make up a symphony orchestra and learn to distinguish between different human voices. 

EPSG:4326

Opera Sound Hunters

Older audiences of the Polish National Opera will undoubtedly remember Lech Majewski's splendid classical production of George Bizet’s most famous opera with monumental sets by Janusz Kapusta and costumes by designed by Hanna Bakuła. Twenty-three years after that premiere, the job of staging Carmen for the Teatr Wielki was taken on by Poland’s popular actor and director, Andrzej Chyra. This time round, the Warsaw audience was treated to a completely different and hardly traditional take on the masterpiece of the world opera repertoire.   

Carmen

What ingredients do you need to create a piece of music? What genre and style can you prepare it? Will you need a form for that? How do you serve dynamics and agogics? What are the vocal capabilities of a tenor and how low can the tuba play? You will get answers to these and other questions during this series of concerts. Note, however, that you will do more than listening!

Music Journeys

Meetings that develop the musical, dance and visual imagination of children 7+ through activities they can enjoy together with their parents, helping reveal talent and showing that the coexistence of different arts is possible, and so are ties between generations.

Family Fun At The Wielki

Each concert in the Premiere Prelude series zeroes in on one opera or ballet composer, offering the audience a different glance at the individuals behind the large-scale dramatic works shown on our stage. Using the more modest, or intimate, medium of chamber music Premiere Preludes speak directly to our feelings and hearts. Held at the Polish National Opera's Redutowe Rooms, these concerts attract both opera and classical music lovers, who sometimes find themselves surprised or even astonished by the new the perspective they are offered. Coming in contact with the subtle fabric of top-quality chamber music is an excellent introduction to the aura of the new productions that are the backbone of the Polish National Opera artistic season.

Premiere Prelude: Romantic Grieg

Theatre makers find Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt to be rather problematic. While challenging to mount on the stage, the dramatic poem with episodic structure featuring fantastical elements turned out to be perfect material for a ballet. In 2015 Slovenian dancer of Romanian origin, Edward Clug created a choreographic adaptation of Peer Gynt. The ballet’s Maribor world premiere was a triumph and the work was subsequently staged in Zurich, Vienna, Dortmund, Hannover, and Leipzig. What is the reason for its popularity? It is not intimidated by the original’s broken narrative, leaving questions about the meaning of the protagonist’s individual adventures unanswered, and, crucially, uses a very contemporary visual language, without treating the Ibsen play as a dusty old fairytale inspired by folklore.

Peer Gynt

Under the guidance of the instructor, the children will learn basic rhythmic values, play percussion instruments and form an orchestra to perform melodic pieces. During the course of the class, the children will also listen and watch music recordings of some of the most beautiful works of music, getting to know the sound of the instruments that make up a symphony orchestra.

Playing With Music

Elīna Garanča has been ruling over the world’s opera stages for twenty years now as one of the best mezzo-sopranos around. Initially, she studied with her mother, Anita Garanča, in her native Riga, then continued her education in Western Europe and the US, with her professors including Virginia Zeani. A breakthrough in her career came in 2003, when the 27-year-old singer apprared in La clemenza di Tito at the Salzburg Festival under Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Today, Ms Garanča can be heard all over the world, performing breeches roles (Chérubin, Octavian, Sextus, Romeo) and her flagship portrayals of passionate women (Delilah, Carmen). She is a versatile artist who does not shy away from Wagnerian roles (Kundry), shines in Verdi’s operas (Eboli, Amneris), excels in the French repertoire (Charlotte), and eagerly performs art songs.

Elīna Garanča

The new initiative of Krzysztof Pastor, Director of the Polish National Ballet seeks to bridge the gap between ballet school training and the demands of professional ballet companies. PNB’s newly created, 10-person strong junior company will work separately from the major company for a year or two to hone their artistic and technical skills and attain the qualifications needed to join PNB or another Polish ballet company as a professional dancer. The junior dancers will be offered special coaching from PNB’s experienced artists and master classes led by international ballet masters. They will present their own artistic programmes on our small stage and subsequently in other Polish theatres, as well as take part in the major company’s daily programme and shows.  

Juvenalia 3

Premiere Prelude: Prayer For The End Of A Century

Krzysztof Penderecki has the ability to build fascinating worlds in his operas. His third work for the stage, The Black Mask, transports the audience into the future, to a Lower Silesian town of Bolkenhain (now: Bolków).

The Black Mask

Count Aleksander Fredro, Poland’s superb comedic playwright, Stanisław Moniuszko, the father of Polish opera, plus two extraordinary choreographies – Sarmatian Parable, the now-classic piece devised by the great Conrad Drzewiecki, and Husband and Wife, a contemporary work created by Anna Hop, a young, yet already acclaimed, artist.

Młynarski Hall

Children's favourite story told through music and dance. Come and join us for a family-friendly ballet production of Cinderella presented on the small stage of the Polish National Opera. Choreographed by Antonio Lanzo, the show is performed by the students of the Warsaw Ballet School.

Cinderella

40 Years Of Sinfonia Varsovia: Daniel Hope

The Kashubian language is a complete rarity when it comes to classical music. It is the language we hear in the cycle of songs Wòlô Bòskô for baritone and piano by contemporary composer Łukasz Godyla drawing on a selection of Kashubian texts and traditional melodies made by singer Damian Wilma, a native of the region fascinated by its culture.

Wòlô Bòskô

Alexandre Dumas fils in his La Dame aux Camélias describes a refined variant of personal love for a Parisian courtesan. Love, let us add, quite brief in duration and cut short by Alexandre Dumas père, and ultimately by his beloved’s death of consumption. It began with a novel, later a play appeared, followed by a migration of the tragic heroine to Verdi’s La traviata, for the story to finally become the theme of the famous ballet by the remarkable choreographer John Neumeier. He opted to use Chopin’s music (although initially he considered Verdi). I do not know if he knew at the time that Dumas fils ended up in Mysłowice in 1851 while searching for another paramour of his (a daughter-in-law of the Russian Chancellor), where he took up the case of a mysterious murder to while away the time. He never got to see his mistress, never found the murderer, but he did stumble upon George Sand’s letters to Frédéric Chopin instead. The paths of Dumas and Chopin crossed once in Silesia, and now they do yet again in Warsaw, in Neumeier’s exceptional La Dame aux Camélias. The power of modern classics on stage and historical flavours off stage.

The Lady Of The Camellias

Everything in Barrie Kosky’s production of The Magic Flute seems like a fairytale and each subsequent idea is a proof of the director’s enormous sense of humour: the composer must have had a lot of fun working with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s score. The red curtain opens to reveal nothing but a white screen where all the frolics will soon take place – the director will juggle elements of silent film, slapstick comedy and cartoon art. His collaborators, Suzanne Andrade and Paul Barritt, also known as “1927”, mixed film animation with live theatre. The effect is stunning. Papageno, the boisterous bumpkin portrayed here as a sad clown channelling Buster Keaton, gets drunk onstage in the company of pink elephants quaffing cocktails from flute glasses. The Queen of the Night is a huge spider, Monostatos appears as a pale vampire dressed as Count Dracula, while Pamina’s black wig with a fringe makes her look like Louise Brooks, the iconic silent film actress and dancer.

The Magic Flute

Memories, summaries, plans, New Year’s resolutions… And what if we put all these reflections aside and escaped the mundane? What if we started the New Year with a high C? With only the greatest opera and operetta hits, masterfully performed? We will hear the stars of Polish and the world’s operatic stages, as well as the Chorus and Orchestra of the Polish National Opera. Great fun guaranteed!

New Year’s Eve Gala

The story of Cio-Cio-San is one of the most beautiful Puccini operas about love. To think that its 1904 premiere at Milan’s La Scala was one of the most bitter experiences in the composer’s life! The atmosphere in the auditorium was almost unbearable. ‘La Bohème!’ chanted the crowd, accusing Puccini of reusing his musical ideas, while booing and yawning ostentatiously. The performance was a complete and utter failure. The composer was savaged by the critics. Rewritten and restaged at the Teatro Grande in Brescia, the opera scored an ultimate triumph. The audience demanded encores of seven passages and the opera became a favourite with theatre programmers around the world.

Madama Butterfly

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

Premiere Prelude: Concert Paraphrases Of Verdi

Simon Boccanegra was written in the 1850s, at a time when Giuseppe Verdi, his confidence boosted by his growing fame, decided to challenge the operatic tradition. It is a gloomy opera dominated by low voices, a baritone in the lead male role, and devoid of supporting female characters. Its 1857 world premiere was not well received: nearing the end of his life, Arrigo Boito introduced far-reaching changes to the work together with the composer and it was the altered version completed in 1881 that finally triumphed on the world’s opera stages.

Simon Boccanegra

This is one of the most important ballets brought into being by Marius Petipa, the great French choreographer who is considered the father of classical ballet. He devised Don Quixote in 1869 for the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and staged its revised version two years later at the Mariinsky in Saint Petersburg. It explores an episode from Miguel de Cervantes’s famous novel and draws on more than a hundred-year presence of the theme on European ballet stages. The score was written according to the choreographer’s instructions by Ludwig Minkus, Austrian violinist and ballet composer with long-standing links to Russia. Petipa’s work was complemented in 1900 with new sequences by Moscow-based choreographer Alexander Gorski. For this reason, they are now both listed as choreographers of the ballet

Don Quixote

Sinfonia Varsovia marks another birthday with a concert at the Polish National Opera.

Sinfonia Varsovia's Birthday Concert

The growing interest in Weinberg, a fascinating composer tapping into Polish, Jewish, and Russian culture, means that his music, which up until recently was mainly confined to recordings and philharmonic concerts, is making its way into theatre programmes. While his operatic pieces have already gained considerable recognition (a good point in case is the memorable Passenger shown on our stage for a few seasons), now the time has come to shine a light on Weinberg’s ballet, The Golden Key.

Premiere Prelude: Romantic Richard Strauss

Ariadne on Naxos was the third opera written by Richard Strauss together with librettist Hugon von Hoffmansthal. Their collaboration had started with the expressionist Elektra, followed two years later by a drastically different, Mozartian Der Rosenkavalier.  Their next project drew heavily on literary inspirations. The one-act opera was meant to be shown at the end of Molièr’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, which Hoffmansthal had just translated into German. The version of Ariadne that prevailed to our times has a prologue setting the metatheatrical stage for the opera. 

Ariadne On Naxos

María De Buenos Aires

The long-anticipated return of the immortal Giselle, a ballet masterpiece brought to life by the most prominent artists of French romanticism, is finally here. The idea for the ballet was originated by poet Théophile Gautier, who drew inspiration from a legend wrote down by Heinrich Heine, the libretto was penned by dramaturge Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges, the score by Adolphe-Charles Adam, and the original choreography was put together by balletmaster Jean Coralli with the help of dancer Jules Perrot. Together, their efforts produced a work considered the paragon of romantic ballet.

Giselle

Holoubek's voice was like music; he was known for the virtuosity with which he spoke Polish and was one of the first winners of the Master of Polish Language title. His Great Improvisation from Mickewicz's Forefathers' Eve was treated by contemporary theatre directors as an undisputed standard of stage monologue. An outstanding actor, he was also an intellectual par excellence, which does not often go hand in hand these days. Raised in a family that cherished music ('My father was absolutely mad about opera; he'd buy opera recordings which I'd listen to since early childhood... I know at least a dozen operas by heart and can hum them, if I want.'). At drama school, he met Artur Malawski, a solfège teacher, who'd take students to music concerts. Holoubek grew to admire baroque polyphony because of its formal discipline and a certain timelessness: 'The music stops, but I can still hear it play.' He was less fond of romantic music, as listening to it he would 'stop listening to the music and start admiring the craft of the composer'. Contemporary music was the most challenging to him, but would make an exception for composers whose works 'displayed clear signs of genius'. These included his personal friend Witold Lutosławski, whom Holoubek visited in his 'soundproofed study where you could hear your own bronchitis.' To celebrate the great actor's memory, each year the Teatr Wielki holds a concert featuring his favorite music. 

'We came to the conclusion that a choreographic workshop should be an integral part of a ballet company’s life if the company harbours the ambition to carve out an original artistic style for itself. Without attempts to find new paths, fresh means of expression and even a new language, ballet would be a mildly unexciting art, offering little surprise or challenge to its audience. Perhaps it would be a dead art.  

Creations 17

Now largely forgotten, Ludwik Grossman was an important 19th century composer and a man actively involved in the musical life of his community. One can see interesting analogies between Grossman’s biography and that of Stanisław Moniuszko. Similarly to his older colleague, Grossman pilgrimaged to Warsaw to study and was taught by August Freyer, to continue his education in Berlin. Both composers took an interest in serious as well as comic opera: the text of Grossman’s first work for the stage, Rybak z Palermo (A Fisherman from Palermo) was written by Jan Chęciński, the librettist of Moniuszko’s The Haunted Manor.

Ghost Of The Governor Concert Version

The show's unconventional format reminiscent of an educational game will undoubtedly captivate the most discriminating audiences. The itinerary of this musical escapade is guided by the greatest hits of the repertoire performed by the Artos Children's Choir. The show will delight young audiences, regardless if they are regular opera goers or are stepping into the world of opera for the first time.

What A Lark At The Opera!

The name Rigoletto is borrowed from a parody of Victor Hugo’s play, while the opera is based on an original prose piece (for a change) penned by the author of Les Misérables. The road to operatic stages was long and bumpy: it began in 1844, it ended seven years later. Censorship kept intently weeding out the 'indecency and vulgarity' of the libretto, disregarding the logical and dramatic consequences of these interventions. If we compare the starting point with the arrival point, it would turn out that there is barely anything left of the first version – even the names were changed in order to hide the association with Hugo, whom the authorities did not regard with kindness. It had certain, shall we say, rather unobvious results: the title character has no real aria to sing, the prima donna has but one, and the acts break off, say, spontaneously. Verdi’s genius, however, trumped the authorities in the end. The opera immediately won the hearts of the audiences – and nothing has changed since the world premiere in that regard. The Warsaw staging begins with a riot of colours, textures, shapes, flashes, gilding and jewels – I had the impression that I was seeing the tinted Orthodox churches of Kremlin of absolutely incomprehensible beauty and physics, suddenly descended in human form. Well it does not matter, what exactly descended, what matters is that the singing is done in Italian. And it shakes you.



Rigoletto

The legendary story of the lovers of Verona has inspired many composers of classical music. Works that employ the motif of Romeo and Juliet can be found in the oeuvre of Hector Berlioz and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. In the 20th century Sergei Prokofiev composed a ballet based on the Shakespearian play, while Leonard Bernstein drew on it to write the musical West Side Story. In the 19th century the trope of feuding families fascinated Vincenzo Bellini. His opera I Capuleti e i Montecchi, however, did not prove as popular as yet another operatic take on teh story: Charles Gounod’s Romeo i Juliet.

Romeo And Juliet Concert Version

TOSCA

Chorus Opera

Juvenalia 4

Let us briefly recall the main theme of this multi-layered myth. The Titan Prometheus stole fire from the gods to share this attribute of their power over the world with the ordinary mortals and contribute to the development of humanity. Enraged with the sacrilege, Zeus decided to wreck cruel revenge on the disruptor and humankind. He ordered Prometheus to be bound to the rocks of the Caucasus and would send an Eagle each day to eat his liver. The vital organ would grow back overnight and only to Prometheus’s suffering to begin again the next day. At the same time, the king of the Olympus decided to put humanity to the test: he ordered a stunningly beautiful and multitalented woman named Pandora to be created and gifted her with a mystery box as a dowry for her future husband. There was just one condition: Pandora was not to open the box under any circumstances. Prometheus’s gullible brother Epimetheus married Pandora, who proceeded to open the box to satisfy her curiosity, consequently releasing all the evils that have been plaguing humanity ever since. Luckily, the box also contained Hope, which remains inside the box to comfort humankind.

Polish National Opera

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