The annual event will start with a recital by Latvian opera singer Elīna Garanča, one of the world’s most acclaimed mezzo-sopranos.
Held at Warsaw's National Opera, the recital will highlight French music, featuring Méditation from Jules Massenet’s Thaïs, the aria Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix from Camille Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah, and a selection of iconic arias from Bizet’s Carmen, a signature role for Garanča.
On Sunday, the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Olari Elts will perform works by Finnish composers Jean Sibelius and Lotta Wennäkoski, Edward Elgar’s symphonic prelude Polonia, and the Second Violin Concerto by Polish composer Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937), with Israeli virtuoso Vadim Gluzman as the soloist.
Polish music will also take centre stage in a concert by the British choir The Sixteen. Their programme includes works by Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki (1665–1734), Bartłomiej Pękiel (1633–1670) and Marcin Mielczewski (1600–1651), performed alongside compositions by Italian masters Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Giovanni Francesco Anerio and Luca Marenzio.
Other festival highlights include works by contemporary Polish composers Paweł Szymański and Paweł Mykietyn, as well as a new production of the late Krzysztof Penderecki’s opera The Black Mask.
Directed by Britain’s David Pountney, the production will be staged at the National Opera in Warsaw on November 22, the eve of the 91st anniversary of Penderecki's birth.
The opera, with a libretto based on a 1928 play by Gerhart Hauptmann, had its world premiere in 1986. Pountney has described it as "a present-day warning against building social order on fragile foundations."
The festival runs until December 8 and extends beyond Warsaw to venues in the cities of Lublin, Kraków and Katowice. Audiences can also enjoy concerts in Penderecki’s birthplace of Dębica and Lusławice, home to the Penderecki European Centre for Music.
Penderecki, a towering figure in contemporary music, died in 2020 at the age of 86.
(mk/gs)