Kraków Opera: Halka

Opera of Many Bests

The grandest and most popular Polish opera, the most famous work by Stanisław Moniuszko – these bests could be multiplied to infinity. Yet Halka very nearly never made it to the stage...

Everything conspired against Moniuszko. He long pleaded with Warsaw’s Grand Theatre to put on his modest two-act play, originally shown in 1848 in remote Vilnius. But the theatre’s directors shelved the work, regarding its theme – a story of a romance between a peasant girl and a nobleman – as touchy or even scandalous. So it was that after ten years of trying, the composer found out from the press that the Theatre had at long last decided to put Halka on. Conscious of the shortcomings of the score and the weak storyline, Moniuszko worked at improving both. In the meantime the libretto writer Włodzimierz Wolski was procrastinating, the prima donna was turning up her nose at playing a simple peasant girl, and the entire city bickered whether Julian Dobrski, cast as Jontek, would find an aria worthy of his voice.

Yet finally Moniuszko reached his goal. The opera grew to four acts featuring some outstanding parts: arias written especially for the soloists of the Warsaw theatre, as well as Polish highlander dances and a mazurka. The triumph of the premiere (1 January 1858) exceeded all expectations – the audience applauded almost every scene and aria. Today Halka belongs to a rock-solid repertoire of operas in Poland, with the latest production – its fifth – presented by the Kraków opera (premiere 16 and 18 December, further performances 20, 21 and 22 December).

You can take Halka two ways. It’s been presented as an analysis of interpersonal conflict, viewed as a manifestation of Polishness and used to highlight class struggle. The director of the latest Kraków production, Waldemar Zawodziński, intends to avoid folky stylisation and first and foremost wants to introduce contemporary audiences to the almost two-century old story. And so we’ll see a universal tale of love that transcends conventions and social order. Łukasz Borowicz will look after the musical side of things.

This production will also have its own “best”: it will feature Mariusz Kwiecień, baritone, star of the world’s finest stages, and soloist at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He has already trodden the stage of Kraków Opera as Don Giovanni and Eugene Onegin; this time he plays the seducer and unfaithful lover Janusz. (Barbara Skowrońska)

Composer: Stanisław Moniuszko
Musical direction: Łukasz Borowicz