The establishment of the Music and Drama Studio by Iwo Gall in 1949 is considered to be the beginning of the Baltic State Opera. In the autumn of 1949 the Opera Studio under the Baltic Philharmonic was established. In 1953 the Studio and The Baltic Philharmonic were merged into one organisation – The Baltic State Opera and Philharmonic. In 1993 the institutions were separated, and, as a result, the Baltic State Opera was made independent. In 2008 Marek Weiss was appointed Director of the Baltic State Opera. He set a new course for the institution’s development. Some ambitious items appeared in the Opera’s repertoire: “The Rape of Lucretia” (Britten) staged by Peter Telihay, “Ariadne on Naxos” (Strauss) and “Salome” (Strauss) staged by Marek Weiss.
In November 2011 was the national premiere of “Madame Curie”, the opera by Elżbieta Sikora, directed by Marek Weiss. This piece was commissioned by the Baltic Opera and presented to the audience for the first time in Paris (15 November 2011), within the official Polish Presidency of the Council of European Union Cultural Programme.
The Baltic Opera, on the Opera Competition and Festival in the Hungarian Szeged, under the aegis of MEZZO TV, staged two spectacles: “The Rape of Lucretia” and “Ariadne on Naxos”. In the season 2012/13, as the only theatre in the history of the Competition, the Opera was invited for a third time. This time it will present the spectacle “Black Mask” by Krzysztof Penderecki, staged by Janusz Wiśniewski.
A sign of recognition for the quality of the Opera is the inclusion of it by BBC TV as the only Polish opera house in the group of the nine best opera theatres in Europe, next to the London Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona, Opera La Monnaie in Brussels and the Opera in Amsterdam.
Galeria
