Mozart Gala Concert: Opera Viva Festival Slowacki Theatre, Krakow, Poland 10.12. 2006 (ARz)

 

The Slowacki Theatre, Krakow

 

 

For 750 years, Krakow has been the cradle of Polish culture and science. For centuries Krakow was Poland's capital city, and played an important part in Polish history. Unlike Warsaw, which was ravaged in the Second World War, Krakow, untouched by German bombs has retained its ancient architecture, and its formidable collections of art. It is protected by UNESCO, which declared it a world heritage site. Surprisingly, despite such a rich artistic heritage, opera has been something of its Achilles' heel and although many fine singers have performed in the city, Krakow lacked a purpose-built opera house. The beautiful but small Slowacki Theatre (built in 1894) is often called a “mini-Garnier” due to its architectural similarity to the famous Paris opera house. In this theatre the opera company has been sharing the stage with a theatre company for about 30 years. At last, 15 years after the fall of communism, the city is finally getting its long-awaited, and deserved, opera house – an 800-seater modern auditorium which opens officially on 31 December 2007.

This year saw the introduction of the winter edition of the Opera Viva Festival (10th -16th December) by the Krakow Opera Company, which has until now been staged in the second part of June. I’ve attended a number of performances in previous festivals, and I'm pleased to say that the artistic level is always getting better, especially in this, the 10th season.

The festival kicked off with a gala concert featuring music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – quite appropriately in the closing days of the year marking the composer’s 250th birthday anniversary. Some local talent was strengthened by young – and in one case very young – artists from Poland’s other opera houses as well as Polish singers pursuing international careers abroad. They could all easily take the centre stage in many big European opera houses.

 

The star of the evening was the soprano Katarzyna Oles-Blacha. Heavily pregnant, she sang Konstanze’s aria Marter aller Arten from Die Entführung aus dem Serail with aplomb and ease. Her pitch and diction were excellent. She brought the house down with her bravura coloratura variations, and ended the concert singing in duet La ci darem la mano from Don Giovanni. Despite her youth, she is a lead singer of Krakow Opera and assistant professor of Vocal Studies at the Krakow Academy of Music. I’ve heard her in three or four different operatic roles in the earlier festivals and she was always easily the best singer in them. It is difficult to understand why this gem is not pursuing an international career: once she has come back on stage from her maternity leave, opera directors should start lining-up to sign contracts with her.

 

The other promising young singer, soprano Malgorzata Olejniczak, is a regular at Poznan Opera. She sang the Queen of Night aria from Die Zauberflöte. She has a powerful coloratura voice and with time and careful management she will be able to cope with the demands of Wagnerian soprano roles. Her current repertoire includes Gilda in Rigoletto, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Frasquita in Carmen. The third female voice was that of a home-grown talent, Maria Knapik. Born and educated in Krakow, she is pursuing her successful career in the US and Canada. Hers is a flexible voice and she coped very well with arias from Cosi fan tutte, Die Zauberflöte (Pamina's Ah, ich fühl’s) as well as with Non mir dir from Don Giovanni.

 

Since this festival is very much about fostering young talent, a chance was given to Piotr Jablonski. Jablonski possesses a clear baritone voice that could promise a good future in dramatic roles. In this gala he sang Leporello's aria Madamina. One minor error did not spoil an overall good performance. With time his voice will presumably deepen and he’ll also get rid of stage fright and jitters that accompanied his very first public appearance. He is, after all, still 18 years old, and a secondary school student of vocal art – I wish him well ! The tenor, Adam Zdunikowski, also young, but much more experienced, has mastered nearly 40 roles, and is well known in Poland and the Czech Republic. He was unofficially named one of the "three Polish tenors" some years ago. His is a pleasing voice and he has good stage presence. In this gala he sang O wie ängstlich from Mozart's Die Entführung and Una aura amorosa as well as Dies Bildniss ist bezaubernd.

 

Another baritone, Andrzej Biegun, made his stage debut in 1981 when most of tonight's accompanying singers were toddlers. On the night he used his experience in voice management and sang carefully Hai gia vinta la causa from Le nozze di Figaro and Fin ch'han del vino from Don Giovanni, as well as La ci darem la mano in a duet with Katarzyna Oles-Blacha. The Krakow Opera Orchestra was conducted by a Canadian, Tyrone Patterson, from Ottawa's Opera Lyra.

 

In its choice of operas, the festival offered an interesting mix of tradition and ambition. There were performances of Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia conducted by Briton Jan Latham Koenig, Charles Gounod's Faust, which I also managed to attend, and P.L.Hertel's ballet La fille mal gardée, ending, after seven days with a performance of Die Fledermaus. Also featured was Stanislaw Moniuszko's opera, Straszny Dwor, or The Haunted Manor, which I saw last June. This comic opera, composed after one of Poland's many failed uprisings against the Russian oppressors in 19th century, is a grand patriotic manifesto. The plot is weak but the opera contains many great tunes. In Krakow it was given a new lease of life by its producer Laco Adamik.

 

 

Andrzej Rzepczynski

 

The Opera Krakowska Web Site's English Pages are Here