Halka
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| Original title: | Halka |
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Theater ticket for the premiere |
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| Original language: | Polish |
| Music: | Stanislaw Moniuszko |
| Libretto : | Włodzimierz Wolski |
| Premiere: | January 1, 1858 |
| Place of premiere: | Teatr Wielki (Warsaw) |
| Playing time: | ≈ 2.25 hours |
| Place and time of the action: | near Krakow , Poland, ca.1770 |
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Halka is a tragic opera in four acts that was premiered in 1858 at the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw . The libretto is by Włodzimierz Wolski (1824–1882), the music was composed by Stanisław Moniuszko . It is a Polish national opera and, along with Straszny Dwór, the composer's best-known.
Music-historical significance and reception history
In 1858, at the time of the partition of Poland, Moniuszko hit the nerve of the oppressed Poles , turning their suffering from the ruling powers on the fate of the seduced, betrayed and abandoned Halka into an emotionally arousing moral pamphlet. With Halka , the composer Stanisław Moniuszko therefore advanced to become the actual creator of the Polish National Opera. He was inspired to the theme of the opera by the peasant uprising in Galicia in the mid-1840s.
During this time he had also got to know the revolutionary writings of Wlodzimierz Wolski in Warsaw, where he moved in 1846. Wolski drew Moniuszko's attention to the folk poem "Góralka" and offered him to develop the opera's libretto from it. A first two-act version was given a concert performance by an amateur music ensemble in 1848 in the town hall in Vilnius, where Moniuszko was employed as organist and later as theater conductor. Warsaw rejected the work on grounds of Russian censorship ; the nobility came off too badly in the opera, and the criticism of the serfdom system was aesthetically and politically explosive. In 1854 the two-act version was premiered in Vilnius, before Moniuszko decided to rewrite Halka into a large four-act opera, which was published in 1858 at Teatr Wielki. Despite massive criticism from the reactionary press of the Russian occupiers, Halka was a great success: Moniuszko toured France with her with the help of pianist Maria Kalergis and in Prague the Czech national composer Bedřich Smetana prepared the Prague premiere of Halka under the direction of Moniuszko.
After the end of the Second World War and the attempt to completely destroy Polish culture by the German National Socialists , the Wrocławska Opera was reopened on September 8, 1945 with the Halka National Opera . In 2010 a new English translation by Donald Pippin was performed by the Pocket Opera Company in San Francisco and Berkeley.
In the United States, the opera was originally performed by the Polonia Opera Company. She played the opera in many cities with Polish émigrés such as New York, Detroit, Hartford and Chicago. But performances have also taken place in Canada, Mexico, Japan, Turkey, Russia and Cuba. In Russia, opera was part of the expanded standard repertoire until the early post-war period (third and final production at the Bolshoi Theater in 1949).
The opera had its first performance in Germany in 1935 in Hamburg, but was not yet able to assert itself here. After the Second World War there were only the following performances in the GDR and the FRG:
- 1951 Görlitz
- 1951 Leipzig
- 1953 Berlin
- 1958 Dresden
- 1966 Saarbrücken
After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 , Halka took to the stage in Oberhausen (1990), Münster / Westphalia (2005) and Kaiserslautern (2015). As a co-production with the Warsaw premiere theater, an Austrian performance of Halka was released for the first time on December 15, 2019 in the Theater an der Wien , with the German-speaking area sang in Polish for the first time. The soloists included Corinne Winters , Piotr Beczała and Tomasz Konieczny .
character
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The stage work is a Polish national opera, which musically and in terms of content expresses what the Poles felt throughout the 19th century. The depressing reality that one's own nation had disappeared from the map of Europe (see Partitions of Poland ) and the term "Poland" was more of an ideal term than a political fact, this reality meant that national identity was only expressed in artistic ideas. Moniuszko's music satisfied the needs of the Polish audience. In it they saw themselves with how they felt and thought. Therefore, more than in any other country, the Polish National Opera was not only a mirror of political events, it actually replaced them.
In addition, Moniuszko does not take up historical, but rather contemporary material with a socially critical tendency: the story of the serf Halka, who is seduced by her young master and then rejected. This is the first time a protagonist from the lower social class has taken the stage in a tragic opera.
action
The opera tells the story of the poor peasant girl Halka and his love for the rich nobleman Janusz. She has not seen her lover, who she is expecting a child, for a long time when she comes from her mountain village to meet him again. Meanwhile, however, Janusz has been promised to husband Zofia, the daughter of Stolnik (lord of the castle). Even Halka's pleading on the evening of the engagement, when she reminded Janusz of his oaths of loyalty, are harshly rejected. Halka's childhood friend Jontek advises her to forget Janusz and avoid further encounters with her lover. Halka, still convinced of Janusz's loyalty, rushes to the castle again to meet him - in vain: all preparations for the wedding of Zofia and Janusz have long been made, Halka is chased from the court. Even the residents of the mountain village, with whom Halka lives, cannot appease her in their anger. She decides to set fire to the church where the wedding will take place with a torch. However, the appearance of the wedding procession holds them back. After swearing her love for Janusz one last time, Halka throws herself from the rock down into the river.
music
The ballad-like, melancholy beautiful story of the poor peasant girl was set to music by Monuiszko with a lot of sympathy for the title roles. The roles of Halka and Jontek in particular, with their dramatically large-scale arias, contain echoes of Polish folk music. The music is composed according to the leitmotif and is based on flowing melodies of Polish folk songs as well as the rousing rhythms of expressive traditional dances such as polonaise , mazurka and motifs from dances of the Gorals , to which Halka belongs. The fact that Moniuszko knew the musical currents of his time, namely those of bel canto in Italy and the elegant musical currents of France, very well, inspires and exhilarates the on the one hand rousing and on the other hand strongly touching work extremely well. His music enchants in many places with motifs of a rural atmosphere and mountains, with motifs of rustling pines and spruces. It is interesting that on the one hand there are audible demarcations between the worlds of the nobility and the people, but for example in the moving duet between Halka and Janusz, on the other hand these are mixed on the level of the momentary feeling. There are clear influences from Auber , Mendelssohn and Lortzing .
expenditure
- Stanisław Moniuszko: HALKA: Opera w 4 aktach ~ Opera in 4 acts, Libretto: Włodzimierz Wolski, Partytura Orkiestrowa ~ Orchestral Score (Warszawa 1861), Edycja faksymilowa ~ Facsimile Edition, Wstep i komentarze ~ Introduction and Commentaries: Grzegorz Zieziula -4, Warszawa 2012: Instytut Sztuki PAN - Stowarzyszenie Liber Pro Arte, ISBN 978-83-63877-12-5 , ISBN 978-83-923438-0-6 .
Discography
- Complete recording (2 CDs) with Woytowicz (Halka), Ochman (Jontek), Ladysz (Stolnik), Malewicz-Madey (Zofia), Hiolski (Janusz), Saciuk (Dziemba). Choeurs de la Radio-Télévision de Cracovie, choir director: Tadeusz Dobrzański. Orchester Symphonique de la Radio Nationale Polonaise, conductor: Jerzy Semkow. Booklet: French, Polish, English. Harmonia mundi France LDC 278-889 / 90 (photo 1973)
- Highlights (1 CD) with Hiolski, Kossowski, Nieman, Slonicka, Paprocki. Opera Narodowa choir and orchestra , conductor Zdizislaw Gorzynski: Polskie Nagrania Muza (recording 1992)
- Complete recording (2 CDs) with Hiolski, Zagorzanka, Ostapiuk, Racewicz, Ochman. Opera Narodowa choir and orchestra, conductor: Robert Satanowski; CPO Records, concert recording (recorded September 1987)
- Complete recording (2 CDs) with Borodina (Halka), Lykhach (Jontek), Buczek (Zofia) & Mariusz Godlewski (Janusz). Choir, Orchestra & Ballet of Opera Wrocławska , conductor Ewa Michnik. Dux Records DUX0538-39, published 2010
- Complete recording (DVD) with Zahartschuk (Halka), Kuzmienko (Jontek), Macias (Janusz), Suska (Zofia), Nowacki (Stolnik), Dymowski (Dziemba). Choir, ballet and orchestra of the Opera Narodowa des Teatr Wielki. Production & direction: Maria Fołtyn, duration: 2:17 hours, subtitles in English, German, French. ZPR Records, released in 1999
- Complete recording (DVD) with soloists, choir, ballet and orchestra of Opera Wrocławska , conductor: Ewa Michnik; Duration: 2:16 hours, subtitles in Polish, English, German. DUX Recording Producers / Metronome DUX 9538, released 2006
literature
- F. Kecki: A Catalog of Musical Works of M.Karłowicz and Stanisław Moniuszko . engl., v. Cl. Szklarska. Warsaw 1936.
- Witold Rudziński : "Halka" S. Moniuszki . Seria Mała Biblioteka Operowa . PWM, around 1954.
- John Warrack, Ewan West: The Oxford Dictionary of Opera. 1992, ISBN 0-19-869164-5 .
- Lesław Czapliński: Huculska "Halka". (about the Ukrainian version of the Moniuszko opera) In: SCENA OPEROWA. 2/1993.
- Karl H. Wörner: History of Music. A study and reference book, 8th edition, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-525-27812-8
- Lesław Czapliński: Niewinność uciśniona: góralka Halka i gejsza Cho-cho-san. In: W kręgu operowych mitów. Kraków 2003.
- The notes for synopsis are based on the English language translation by Donald Pippin (2010).
Web links
- Libretto (see picture)
- Classic magazine
Individual evidence
- ↑ "It is known that the Galician peasant uprising of 1846 against the landlords had a national and national component in addition to its social component: It was an action by the Ruthenian (Ukrainian) lower classes against a Polish upper class and thus a national and social contradiction." Biwald (1996). 106.
- ↑ https://muzobozrenie.ru/nikto-ne-zabyt-200-letie-stanislava-monjushko/
- ^ Presto Classical - Moniuszko: Halka ( Memento from December 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Stanisław Moniuszko HALKA on polishfilm.ca ( Memento from June 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Presto Classical - Moniuszko: Halka , DVD ( Memento from March 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive )