Halka

Opera in four acts 
Libretto: Włodzimierz Wolski
World premiere of the four-act version: 1 January1858, Teatr Wielki in Warsaw
Premiere of this production: 23 December 2011
In the original Polish with English surtitles.

The French have La Muette de Portici, we have Halka. No matter that the plots are so similar, or that Moniuszko’s music owes a lot to Auber.

Halka was written in two stages. The original version completed by 28-year-old Moniuszko in 1847 was a masterpiece whose modern approach to dramatic structure fell outside the pattern of a traditional number opera, just like Wagner’s Tannhauser. Halka’s bad reception in conservative Vilnius led the composer to rework it 10 years later. Without blunting the social criticism, Moniuszko loosened the dramatic corset and added some heavenly long-drawn-out passages, such as Jontek’s aria 'Sighing firs on mountain tops', without which it is impossible to imagine the work today.

Thus, a Polish 'national opera' came into being, its myth proving difficult to handle today. Natalia Korczakowska attempts a new take on Halka’s 'mythological' baggage. Provoking slightly with images that radically contemporize the message, she more often amazes with her new and clever interpretation, introducing the quasi oneiric vision of the crumbling wooden church where Janusz and Zosia are married; the familiar and universal figure of the Faun from Jacek Malczewski’s paintings; or the suicide scene with its final effect close to the category of unheimlich that the composer himself always dreamed of.

Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera
Polish National Ballet
Actors and extras