Polish Fluency

Moniuszko is always bracketed with Smetana and Erkel, as the originator of a national style for Polish opera as they were for opera in Czech and Hungarian lands (the Glinka comparison, for Russia, has less validity). Halka, his most successful opera, makes a very occasional appearance in Western theatres: though it was written in the 1840s, it did not reach the Polish stage until 1854, and its British premiere came in 1961. Moniuszko's other operas are almost never to be found outside Poland. The overtures here selected do not include that to his other most successful opera, The haunted manor, which only has an Intrada, and, as can be seen above, choice differs only in CPO's inclusion of Jawnuta and Olympia's of two shorter pieces.