The other nominees for the award were: Alfred Casella's La donna serpente (Teatro Regio di Torino), Piert Antonio Cesti's Le nozze in sogno (Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik), Gaetan Donizetti's Olivo e Pasquale (Donizetti Opera Festival, Bergamo), Umberto Giordano's La cena delle beffe (Teatro alla Scala), and Oscar Straus's Die Perlen der Cleopatra (Komische Oper).
The International Opera Awards was founded in 2012 by a lifelong opera lover Harry Hyman. The first 'operatic Oscars’ were awarded in 2013. Each year sixteen awards are handed out by an international jury made up of twenty-one music critics and industry professionals, including: John Allison (Daily Telegraph), Hugh Canning (Sunday Times), Neil Fisher (The Times), Francisco Jose Folch (El Mercurio), Deborah Jones (The Australian), Nicholas Payne (Director Opera Europa), Joanna C. Lee (Opera China), Christina Scheppelmann (Grand Teatre del Liceu). The 2017 awards gala took place on Saturday, 7 May at the London Coliseum.
Goplana debuted at the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera on 21 October 2016 under Grzegorz Nowak as the first new production of the season. Rarely staged as it is – seventy years have passed since the work was last seen onstage – it was enthusiastically welcomed by audiences and critics.
Janusz Wiśniewski has made his name as opera director with his productions of Zbigniew Rudziński’s Mankind [Mannequins] and Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins at the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera. Dubbed 'the second Tadeusz Kantor’, he left his mark on Polish theatre of the 1980s.
Last year the International Opera Awards jury showed its appreciation for Mariusz Treliński’s work, who was nominated for Best Director, and the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera, which was shortlisted for Best Opera Company.
Goplana is still available for watching online for free through the VOD service of the Teatr Wieki.
Pictured: Edyta Piasecka as Goplana in the Teatr Wieki’s production, photo: Krzysztof Bieliński
