In its day, this text by nineteenth-century poet Włodzimierz Wolski worked perfectly as an artistic commentary on the causes and consequences of the Galician Slaughter. Perhaps not as adamantly as Wyspiański in “Liberation,” but quite bravely nonetheless, the libretto for “Halka” delves into the tension between the “defenders of Poland,” aka the landowning class, and the “traitor peasants,” who sided with the Austrian Empire to end their exploitation at the hands of the nobility once and for all. Between the nobility – who are not blameless – and the peasants – with a slowly birthing consciousness of their subservient position, stands Halka, whom Moniuszko and Wolski make beautiful, dumb, miscarrying a bastard child, and perishing by suicide, in confusion and despair. The character of Halka accommodates the interpreter. Her status as silent allows us to project upon her what significance and metaphors we please. The conflict of the social classes, Halka as a motherland “stripped and plundered” by the partitioning forces – “besmirched” by the partitioning nobility, accused by the peasants of having given them nothing, unable to accept the feudal system that has ravaged her for centuries. If Halka could speak, the dynamic of this dramatic situation would have immediately changed. And what if she were allowed a touch of the justified rage that women have been denied?
Production
The National Stary Theater
Creative
Director Anna Smolar
Script Natalia Fiedorczuk, Anna Smolar, in collaboration with the ensemble of actors
Scenography / costumes Anna Met
Choreography Paweł Sakowicz
Music Enchanted Hunters (Magdalena Gajdzica, Małgorzata Penkalla)
Lighting director / video Liubov Gorobiuk