In Moniuszko’s 200th birth anniversary year we present and new outlook on the music of the father of Polish national opera. Selected arias and songs from the famous Home Songbooks will take on a new sound in arrangements for historical instruments, showing the beauty of their composition in a new light.

Stanisław Moniuszko (the so-called Polish Schubert) used Polish folk rhythms and countryside melodies to help create a national style in chamber music and opera, using solid compositional technique acquired during musical studies in Berlin. We bring together those famed art songs, and heart-rending arias – hits of the XIXth century polish salon – and actual folk songs of the time collected by Oskar Kolberg, an ethnomusicologist who lived and worked parallel to Moniuszko. The times of Poland’s struggle for indepence is a time when singers with a hurdy gurdy on their backs wandered from village to village , telling stories and news of the world and in musician at Warsaw Opera tuned instruments equipped with natural gut strings, today reserved for historically informed playing.

Repertoire:

Art Songs and Arias by Stanisław Moniuszko, traditional folk tunes arranged by Oskar Kolberg, the Polish Baroque Suite (various composers)

Performers:

5-8 people – singers, instrumentalists and optionally – dancers

Duration:

1 hr 15 min – 1 hr 30 min