FREDRIANA Comes to Teatr Wielki This Month

Fredriana comes to Teatr Wielki. Performances run through 15 June 2024.

Count Aleksander Fredro, Poland’s superb comedic playwright, Stanisław Moniuszko, the father of Polish opera, plus two extraordinary choreographies – Sarmatian Parable, the now-classic piece devised by the great Conrad Drzewiecki, and Husband and Wife, a contemporary work created by Anna Hop, a young, yet already acclaimed, artist.

In his lifetime, Moniuszko did write music to the Count’s plays, for instance Nowy Don Kiszot, czyli Sto szaleństw (New Don Quixote, or A Hundred Follies). Hop’s piece, however, uses Moniuszko’s only ballet, Na kwaterze (In the billets) as its score.

Sarmatian Parable, Drzewiecki’s balletic version of Fredro’s Revenge, the most amusing comedy ever written in Polish, is danced to one of Moniuszko’s best orchestral scores – the fantastic overture Fairy Tale. The Polish National Ballet managed to perfectly revive Drzewiecki’s work under the supervision of Emil Wesołowski, the iconic choreographer’s former student. The ballet wittingly tells the story of two warring clans and their young members, Waław and Klara, who fall in love but cannot find happiness due to their fathers’ obstinance.   

Written in 1868, Na kwaterze (also known as Na kwaterunku), the music that accompanies Anna Hop’s choreographic take on Fredro’s Husband and Wife, is one of Moniuszko’s later pieces. Fredo’s protagonists Elwira, her husband Wacław and their lovers Alfred and the maid Justysia are tangled into a very unseemly relationship.

The double bill is another chance to listen to Moniuszko’s music which accompanies the tongue-in-the-cheek romantic storylines. The light-hearted, universal comedy ingeniously constructed by the brilliant playwright is a perfect match with Moniuszko’s at times lyrical and at times dramatic score. And so are the two choreographies superbly performed by the dancers of the Polish National Ballet.

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