I don’t think anyone reading this blog actually listens to these webcasts but a promise is a promise, so here’s a quick list of the remaining live transmissions from the Polish Music Festival in Cracow:

11th Nov. (that’s today!) 19:25 (UTC+1)

a concert of light music (or, where it can’t really be called light, as in the case of Stefan’s aria, a concert of “greatest hits” of Polish music)

Stefan Kisielewski Cosmos I

Wojciech Kilar Vocalise from Polanski’s The Ninth Gate

Mieczysław Karłowicz Pamiętam ciche jasne, złote dnie op. 1 nr 5 (arr. by M. Lewandowski for tenor & orch)

Karol Szymanowski Młodości mej dla Ciebie bije żar – duet from the opera Hagith

Henryk Wars Piano Concerto

Grażyna Bacewicz Overture

Ludomir Różycki Caton’s Waltz from the opera Casanova (III act)

Stanisław Moniuszko Cisza dokoła… Stefan’s recitativo and aria from The Haunted Manor (III act)

Karol Szymanowski Od czasu gdym Cię ujrzał raz duet from the operetta Loteria na mężów (The Husband Lottery)

Władysław Szpilman Waltz in the old style

Wojciech Kilar Piano Concerto

performers: Katarzyna Jagiełło – soprano, Paweł Skałuba – tenor, Peter Jablonski – piano, Polish Radio Orchestra, Łukasz Borowicz – conductor

15th Nov. 19:25 (UTC+1)

Krzysztof Penderecki’s birthday concerto

pieces by Krzysztof Penderecki

Threnody

Viola Concerto

Symphony no. 4

Actions

performers: Grigory Zhislin – viola, Tomasz Stańko – trumpet, Sinfonietta Cracovia, Peter Gülke – conductor

Polish Radio 2 live stream here.

I should also add that the Polish Radio program has an empty spot on 12th November at 19:05. It just says “concert” but no details are given. The festival concert on that day starts at 19:30, so I don’t think they will be transmitting it. But one never knows…

The Polish Radio is offering a rare treat on Sunday evening (well, evening over here, in Warsaw): they will be airing a live concert performance of Roman Statkowski’s opera Maria. As far as I know, this has never been recorded, not even in excerpts.

Statkowski is a largely forgotten composer. The only piece of his that sometimes (very rarely) gets performed is a set of piano Preludes (op. 37) and a Krakowiak (Cracovienne) for violin and piano. He was born in 1859, started composing quite late (initially, he trained to become a lawyer) and then practically stopped after 1904, when he embarked on a successful teaching career (among his students were composers Jan Maklakiewicz, Piotr Perkowski and Bolesław Szabelski). Tchaikovsky was his musical idol and the Russian composer’s influence is supposed to be clearly visible in Statkowski’s pieces (as I say, he rarely gets performed, so I’m just repeating what I read). His most notable compositions include two operas (Filenis and Maria, both considerably successful during the composer’s lifetime – the former was awarded the first prize at an international competition in London, the latter – at a national competition in Poland) and some string quartets (which the great Polish writer Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz referred to as masterpieces). Many of his works were lost during World War II. He died in 1925.

Maria was composed for a competition held in 1904. Entrants were requested to write an opera based on Antoni Malczewski’s verse novel Maria (they had to supply their own librettos). It is considered Statkowski’s best work and one of the best Polish operas written after Moniuszko. The music is said to be very dramatic and colorful, with many Ukrainian elements (the action takes places in the Ukraine). While the music is said to be wonderful, the libretto, written by Statkowski himself, was often criticized (by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, among others), and in later years attempts had been made to “repair” it. Antoni Malczewski’s Maria is one of the finest Polish long poems of the 19th century, an unquestionable masterpiece and apparently Statkowski’s libretto does not give it full justice. As most Polish novels in verse of its time (it was written in 1824), Malczewski’s novel was strongly influenced by Byron’s poems. The tale, based on real events, is one of love and murder. To make a long story short: the father who opposed his son’s marriage has the bride, Maria, murdered.

The broadcast begins tomorrow (Sunday, Sept. 21st), at 19:00 CEST (UTC+2) (that’s roughly 2 hours from now, tomorrow). This is the opening of the season of the Witold Lutosławski Concert Hall (Polish Radio Concert Hall S-1).

Performers: Polish Radio Choir and Polish Radio Orchestra in Warsaw conducted by Łukasz Borowicz, Wioletta Chodowicz – soprano, Dariusz Pietrzykowski – tenor, Artur Ruciński – baritone, Wojciech Gierlach – bass-baritone, Krzysztof Kur, Rafał Łukomski.

And here’s a direct link to the radio station.

As you may know, the first work considered to be an opera in the modern sense of the term was Dafne by Jacopo Peri, written around 1597 in Florence. The oldest surviving opera score is also one by Peri (composed in collaboration with Giulio Caccini) – it is called Euridice, and it comes from around 1600. Apart from Florence, another early opera center was Mantua. Monteverdi wrote his first opera La Favola d’Orfeo there in 1607. Then, in the 1610s and 1620s opera spread to Rome and Bologna. It was roughly at that time when the first ever opera was to be performed outside of Italy…

Sometime before March 8th 1628 Galatea, an opera by Sante Orlandi (music) and Gabriel Chiabrera (libretto) was staged in… Warsaw, Poland of all the places in the world! This was even before the first operas were performed in Venice! Warsaw was the fifth city in world history to see an opera, and the first non-Italian one!

How did this strange fact come to be? It appears the young son of king Sigismund III Vasa, the future king Władysław (Ladislaus) IV Vasa was very fond of the arts, including music. In 1625, while he was visiting Florence, he attended a staging in his honor of La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina – the first opera by a woman composer (Francesca Caccini). The prince obviously enjoyed the show – he arranged for this novelty to be brought over to Poland, and that’s how the 1628 Warsaw performance of Galatea came to be. Later that same year Francesca Caccini’s opera itself was also performed at the Warsaw court (thus becoming the second opera to be ever performed outside Italy, apparently).

When the prince became king Władysław IV Vasa he had one of the halls of the Royal Castle in Warsaw made into an opera theatre. This new venue was the first permanent opera stage in the world (it preceded the Venetian Teatro di San Cassiano by 2 years) – the first opera performed there (in 1635) was Giuditta (by unknown authors). Władysław IV brought over from Italy composer Marco Scacchi’s opera troupe – these musicians were usually authors of the music, while the king’s secretary Virgilio Puccitelli (another Italian) penned most of the libretti. The king’s opera was closed down in 1648, after his death. More than a dozen operas are known to have been staged in Poland during his lifetime but not a single one of them survives.

During the next 100 years nothing much really happened in Polish operatic life. The genre did not entirely disappear – operas were staged now and then – but these were always very special events, and no regular opera theatre was run. This was to change only during the reign of Augustus III of Poland (1734-1763) – who built the first opera house in Poland (in Warsaw), and brought over Johann Adolf Hasse. It was during that time that the first Polish opera (sung in Polish) was composed.

All this is very well and interesting but the truth is that Polish opera did not achieve true greatness before Stanisław Moniuszko (b. 1819). Or if it did, those great operas did not survive to our times. So, once again, I have typed myself into a corner, and have to promise that I will devote, one day, a separate post to Moniuszko…

And with that promise I end today’s post.

(Note 1: We are talking about early 17th century here. It may very well be that operas were performed in territories other than Italy or Poland before 1628 – we may simply not know about it because no documents survive. That Polish premiere, however, is the oldest one that we can be certain of.)

(Note 2: “Polish baroque music” is probably a bit of a misnomer as a category for this post – the early 1600s weren’t really baroque times in Polish music yet, neither was any of the composers listed above Polish – except for Moniuszko, of course. Be that as it may – that’s the category I’m keeping. )

Poland may not be the first place you think of for getting your operatic kicks.  However, one of opera’s most famous artists–Rafal Olbinski, check out one of his works below (a poster for Pelleas et Melisande)–just happens a native Pole.  Eastern Europe is a great place in general to check out opera for a handful of reasons: 1) the performances are usually innovative, 2) the houses attract a variety of big ticket musicians (many of whom, like Anna Netrebko and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, call Eastern Europe home), 3) the houses are historic and sitting in one is like being in a padded jewel-box, and 4) the tickets are far cheaper here than in Western Europe.

Case in point: Warsaw’s Teatr Wielki, which hosts the Opera Narodowa (aka National Opera) as well as Warsaw’s main ballet corps.  With Poland still on the Zloty, the highest cap for tickets here is $42 USD, and prices go as low as $8 USD.  Additionally, there are 30% discounts available for students and seniors.  The house is stunning and the performers superb.  Sunday at 6:00 pm is the opening night for one of our personal operatic favourites, Lucia di Lammermoor.  You’ll recognize Lucia’s Mad Scene from its use in The Fifth Element, and the famous (or infamous) Sextet from either music class, The Departed, or the Three Stooges.  And with the creative cast on the Wielki’s roster including mid-air acrobatics, we have a feeling this will be nice on the eyes as well as on the ears.

This weekend, you’ll also be able to catch the premiere of a more recent opera, Szeligowski’s The Students’ Revolt.  The first opera created in Poland after World War II, this piece is based heavily on folk music drama which originated in Russia, while centering around a very Polish story (based on true events).  And while we love our Italian opera, being in Eastern Europe seeing an Eastern European opera performed by Eastern Europeans is somewhat akin to seeing the Brits do Shakespeare.

Thanks, cecy_investigacion!

Teatr Wielki/Opera Narodowa
Plac Teatralny 1, Warsaw
692.02.00

http://www.teatrwielki.pl