Moniuszko and his world in posters

Moniuszko and his world in posters

8 - 31 March 2019

Format B1 Gallery

Curator: Aleksandra Oleksiak

 

The Polish Parliament has established 2019 – the bicentennial anniversary of the composer’s birth as the Year of Moniuszko.

Compared to other composers, Moniuszko was extremely prolific. He wrote more musical scores than Chopin, only slightly fewer than Liszt, and yet so far no modern monograph concerning the composer has been written. Most of the stage works dating from his studies in Berlin and Vilnius were until now unknown. A complete set of his operatic works has yet to be published, and his most famous operas (Halka and Straszny Dwór – The Haunted Manor) are known solely from 20th century studies. 2019 will aim to change this situation. A series of events throughout Poland have been prepared in order to better acquaint us with and appreciate the composer and his legacy.

 

Stanisław Moniuszko, bearer of the Krzywda (Injustice, Grief) coat of arms, born on May 5th 1819 in Ubiel near Minsk, died on June 4th 1872 in Warsaw. Composer, conductor, music teacher, considered the "father of Polish national opera". He was a tireless organizer of Polish musical life during the country’s partitions.

 

His first contact with music was thanks to his mother. After moving to Warsaw (1827), he took piano lessons with August Freyer, after 1830 with Dominik Stefanowicz in Minsk. In the autumn of 1837, he went to study music in Berlin. He became a private student of Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen, the director of the Singakademie. He learned harmony, counterpoint, instrumentation, accompaniment to singers, and conducting for choir and orchestra, listened to concerts, recitals by virtuosos, and attended opera performances. In Berlin, he published his first songs, to words by Mickiewicz, and among other things, wrote string quartets and the operettas Nocleg w Apeninach (A night in the Apennines) to the words of Aleksander Fredro, as well as Szwajcarska chatka (The old Swiss cottage).

 

After marrying Aleksandra née Müller (1840), he settled in Vilnius, where he spent the next 17 years. He gave music lessons, accepted the position of organist in St. John’s church, and conducted the orchestra during concerts, theatre and opera performances. During this time he composed religious works (Litanie Ostrobramskie – Litanies of Ostra Brama, masses, and church songs for organ), and also wrote a series of vaudeville pieces and small comic operas (including: Loteria – The Lottery, Ideał czyli Nowa Precjoza – Perfection, or The New Preciosa, Karmaniol, czyli Francuzi lubią żartować – Carmagnole, or The French Like Joking), and also Bettly  i Cyganie (Bettly and the Gypsies) revised later in Warsaw under the title Jawnuta.

We can thank Moniuszko for nearly 300 songs composed to the words of the eminent Polish poets: Adam Mickiewicz, Jan Kochanowski, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, and Władysław Syrokomla. In 1844 he published his first Śpiewnik domowy (Songbook for Home Use), a popular collection of songs addressed to a wide audience. Six of the altogether twelve songbooks were published during his lifetime.

During a stay in Warsaw in 1846, he received the libretto to Halka from Włodzimierz Wolski. The original, two-act version of the opera was performed on January 1st 1848 in Vilnius. Today, this work’s manuscript is considered the beginning of Poland’s national opera. A full-length performance took place on February 28th 1854 in the Vilnius theatre.

 

However, the event that brought him success was its premiere at the Grand Theatre in Warsaw on January 1st 1858, where a four-act version was expanded to include among other pieces, the famous aria sung by Halka and Jontek, and enhanced by highland dances. As a result of this success, which led to the position of director (i.e. conductor) specializing in Polish opera, he moved to Warsaw permanently (1858), where he remained until the end of his life. Here in the following years he presented the comic operas that earned him everlasting fame: the one-act Flis (The Raftsman, 1858), the three-act Hrabina (The Countess, 1860), the one-act Verbum nobile (1861) and the most renowned four-act epic – Straszny Dwór (The Haunted Manor, 1865). By 1864, Moniuszko had begun lecturing at Warsaw’s Music Institute. He also achieved fame in other Slavic countries and during the composer's lifetime Halka was staged in Prague (1868), Moscow (1869) and St. Petersburg (1870). In 1868 he composed music for the one-act ballet Na kwaterunku (On the billet).

 

Little interest was shown in his serious opera Paria (1869) and the comic operetta Beata (1872) in Moniuszko's day. Moniuszko died of a sudden heart attack shortly after its premiere on June 4th 1872. He was buried at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw. His funeral drew thousands of people and was transformed into a spontaneous, national demonstration, as in the second half of the 19th century, during the difficult times of Poland’s partitions, he was accorded the role of bard and propagator of Polish culture, who composed in order for Poles to "take heart". He became a special symbol of the national cause and its chief propounder of Poland regaining her independence.

 

Moniuszko reproduced in music poetic episodes that painted an old Polish custom. Such excellent Polish graphic designers as Tadeusz Gronowski, Waldemar Świerzy, Wiktor Sadowski and Jan Jaromir Aleksiun have all managed to depict this phenomenon in their posters: a Polish manor house, a nobleman’s contouche belt, a bushy moustache – these the symbols of an ancient tradition, a kind of historical costume. Rich references to the folk music that Moniuszko heard in Ubiel, Warsaw, and Vilnius, are also reflected in posters. Graphic motifs such as: a highlander’s alpenstock, or a torn string of red beads (in a poster by Maciej Urbaniec) are the symbols of the folklore that is ubiquitous in Moniuszko's music. Ryszard Kuba Grzybowski, designing his poster for Halka – a performance of which in 1967 inaugurated the activity of the newly opened Great Theatre in Lodz, used for this purpose the motif of a plant particular to the Tatra Mountains called Carline thistle.

 

Poster Museum at Wilanów present 31 selected posters from the years 1951-2001, including designs by the well-known set designers Andrzej Sadowski and Tadeusz Gryglewski, along with posters announcing various performances of Moniuszko’s operas, including Hrabina (The Countess) from 1951 by Leon Schiller, as well as the jubilee posters issued to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first performances of Halka, Hrabina (The Countess) and Straszny Dwór (The Haunted Manor) at the Grand Theatre in Warsaw.

 

Also presented will be posters announcing successive editions of the Moniuszko Festival in Kudowa Zdroj, whose initiator was Maria Fołtyn – a Polish soprano and opera director, who devoted many years to promoting Moniuszko's works abroad as well at home. She has staged Halka and Straszny Dwór (The Haunted Manor) in Europe, America and Asia, in Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and Cuba. She is also organizer of the Moniuszko International Vocal Competition, which since 1992 has been held every three years in Warsaw. Winners of this competition have included Urszula Kryger and Aleksandra Kurzak – superb interpreters of Moniuszko songs.

 

The show will be accompanied by a multimedia presentation of job prints connected with Moniuszko (programs, flyers, posters, press reviews) from the New Files Archive in Warsaw and sound recordings made available by the National Digital Archives.

A detailed program of these events may be found on the website: www.moniuszko200.pl

 

 

Partners of the exhibition