The Portrait

Opera in three acts
Libretto: Alexander Medvedev based on a story by Nikolai Gogol
Polish premiere: 6 December 2013
In the original Russian with Polish surtitles 

According to many experts in new music, after Sergei Prokofiev's death, Mieczysław Weinberg was the most interesting composer in the Soviet Union, second only to Dmitri Shostakovich. Apart from Alexandre Tansman and Andrzej Panufnik, Weinberg was one of few Polish composers who, living in exile, managed to interest most outstanding performers in his music. His compositions include several dozen of symphonies, concerts, choral pieces, chamber pieces, and movie scores (including  The Cranes Are Flying). He is the author of as many as seven operas: The Passenger to a libretto based on a short story by Zofia Posmysz; The Love of D'Artagnan drawing on Alexandre Dumas' novel; Well done! set to a text inspired by a short story by Sholem Aleichem; and other based on the works of Bernard Shaw, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, or Nikolai Gogol.

And it was Gogol who wrote the story that inspired the libretto of The Portrait. The first performance of the opera was held in 1983 at the National Theatre in Brno. Other adaptations had not been attempted before the Bregenzer Festspiele (2010) where the opera's rendition by John Fulljames was shown. Later came stagings at the Nancy Opera and the North Theatre in Leeds directed by British opera director David Pountney – the very same who will now present his take on The Portrait in Poznań. Pountney, former long-time artistic director of the Scottish Opera, English National Opera, and Bregenzer Festspiele, gained recognition by reviving little-known opera pieces. He staged The Passenger (2010) by Weinberg and King Roger by Karol Szymanowski (2011) at the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera.

The production won the Jan Kiepura Theatre Music Award in 2014.

Finansed from a subsidy of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland.

Orchestra of the Poznań Opera House

Cast may be be changed