Director, Mariusz Treliński, conductor, Łukasz Borowicz and the entire company of this co-production between the Teatr Wielki Opera Narodowa Warsaw and the Theater an der Wien of Moniuszko’s Halka have catalyzed to produce an operatic event of significant interest and appeal.

Treliński is the Artistic Director of the aforementioned Polish theatre, and his international successes brought him last year’s International Opera Award as best director.

His work with this current production’s ensemble sees a
staging which well-mirrors the score, and with the protagonists generally performing with compelling realism and credibility.

Most unflinching in her commitment was Corinne Winters - an intense performer who echoes an odd melange of Leonie Rysanek and Teresa Stratas (the former through her idiosyncratically guttural mid-range and the latter through her slinky beauty). Halka is a testing role vocally, emotionally, and in this production, also physically. Miss Winters has undertaken Fiordiligi (Cost fan tutte) and Violetta (La Traviata) in houses such as The Royal Opera, Covent Garden and London’s English National Opera, and has parts such as Rusalka and Kát’a Kabanová already under her belt. This production’s Halka surely points toward a potentially riveting Jenufa and Lulu, yet waiting in the wings. 

No stranger in the classical giants such as Wotan, Barak or Scarpia, Tomasz Konieczny makes an ideal Janusz with his stentorian, steely baritone coldly impaling Moniuszko’s braggart anti-hero - while conversely surprising with an impish appeal, nicely iced through commendable physical dexterity and a convincing abandoned swagger.

As Jontek, Piotr Beczała - with his personable presence and honeyed timbre - remains a deserved favourite in the house, again on this occasion reminding why he is arguably the world’s current leader in his Fach.  Parallel to Plácido Domingo’s initiation in 2010 with the Theater an der Wien for a staged version of Catán’s Il Postino, now Beczała is apparently the driving force behind this first Vienna series of Halka - a work regarded by many as Poland's most significant opera. 

The remaining leads were well cast and equally well defined, with Alexey Tikhomirov an ideally bombastic and overpowering Stolnik, Natalia Kawałek (Stolnik’s daughter and Janusz’ fiancée, Zofia) delightfully blond and gushing in her platform-heeled shoes, and with Łukasz Jakobski camply coiffed and obeisant as the majordomo, Dziemba.

The Arnold Schoenberg Chor is generally known for their stage facility as much as for their fine singing, but rarely have they appeared so natural and nonchalant as in their contribution on this evening.

The clever staging (sets, Boris Kudlička) focused on the virtually constant revolving interior of a flower-power-styled hotel, which featured floor-to-ceiling glass (facilitating occasional torrents of rain as well as intriguing light deflections), and a series of implacable birch tree trunks which towered down upon the hopeless fate facing the heroine as the drama unfolds. The stage rotation was bi-directional and at varying tempi, with some of the action undertaken in slow-motion and the opening and closing of both acts twinned but subtly sequelled (dramaturgy, Piotr Gruszczyński). Clever - but unobtrusive lighting (Marc Heinz), video design (Bartek Macias), and unsparing - but compelling - choreography for the entire cast by Tomasz Wygoda underscored the concept. Black and white with grey and silver elements, the costumes (Dorothée Roqueplo), as well as hair and make-up (Łukasz Pycior) wonderfully captured the era with an added touch of decadence that well befitted a setting reflecting a period when the Iron Curtain still prevailed.  

In the pit, Łukasz Borowicz drew a superb range of colour and effect from the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester in absolute affinity with both the cast and the challenging staging.

5 stars!