The southern city of Krakow, also dubbed Poland’s cultural capital, finally has its own opera. After a wait of over five decades, dignitaries from across Poland descended upon the new opera house for its grand opening with a performance of Krzysztof Penderecki’s ‘The Devils of Loudun’.
John Beauchamp reports
A bizarre feeling came across me when, upon entering the new red-faced opera building, I realised that this really is history in the making. Not because I was there, you understand, but because of something else. Krakow is called Poland’s cultural capital, and the city is accustomed to having such maxims stuck on to it: ‘cultural capital’, ‘spiritual centre’ and so on. But this veritable behemoth of modern civilisation has been lacking in one thing for quite some time. Its own opera house. For the past fifty years, Krakow’s opera company shared a stage with the Słowacki Theatre in the heart of the city. The new opera house is located just on the outskirts of the rather twee façades that make up the Old Town complex, and is designed accordingly. Next to the ever-busy Mogilskie roundabout, it towers above the surrounding buildings with its shiny red construction made of metal and glass. A break from traditional designs for opera houses, one might say. And it is this break from tradition which got local residents going when they found out that it was Penderecki’s ‘The Devils of Loudun’ that was to be performed, rather than the inevitable ‘Halka’ or ‘Haunted Manor’ by Moniuszko. I heard voices saying that if Penderecki must be performed, then let it be ‘Ubu Rex’, at least!
‘The Devils of Loudun’ is a story well-known in Polish literary canon: Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz wrote about the tale of ‘Mother Joanna from the Angels’, which was the same story set in deepest Poland. Krzysztof Penderecki, who himself is a Krakow resident, wrote the opera in the late 1960s and its score is very difficult, both for the performers and the audience, which for the opening night consisted of many distinguished public figures, including Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, who blessed the building onstage before the opera performance, Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski who donned a white scarf for the affair, Defence Minister Bogdan Klich, who is also a Cracovian, both Jan and Nelli Rokita, as well as Professor Ryszard Legutko and a whole host of other notables, including the Małopolska voivode, the voivodeship marshal and the list goes on…
The whole event was a jolly affair, and the performance was not as heavy and morose as some might have predicted. The acoustics were spot on, and even in the balcony the sound was crisp and carried well. And being in the ‘gods’ meant that it was easy to see the orchestra packed in their pit. Apart from occasional sniggering at the building’s architecture (and I wonder what the reception of Sydney’s opera house was), the reception afterwards went on until the early hours of the morning.
So a high-brow event for a high-brow opera. And even though the building may not be so traditional, its opening passed in true Cracovian tradition.