Recorded by Italian period instruments ensemble Europa Galante under Fabio Biondi, with a mostly Polish cast and the Choir of the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic in Białystok, eastern Poland, the album was released by the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw.
In his review of the recording, Opera critic John Allison said that Moniuszko’s best-loved operas Halka and The Haunted Manor "have been recorded many times over, but this is something completely different—the first serious revisiting of an important work that appeared between them and which has been both overlooked and misunderstood."
He added The Countess (Hrabina) "may lack the big tunes of Moniuszko’s more popular works, yet it is full of subtle interest."
Recorded during the Chopin and His Europe festival in Warsaw in the summer of 2020, "this scintillating performance opens with a lovingly and stylishly played overture, shaped by Biondi with a mounting sense of excitement," Allison also wrote.
"When the history of modern Moniuszko reception comes to be written, it’s likely that this recording will feature as an important landmark,” he concluded.
Moniuszko is known as the father of Polish national opera.
(mk/gs)