QUDSJA ZAHER at Teatr Wielki - Opera Narodowa, Moniuszko Auditorium

The left brain hemisphere is said to be ruled by logic, the right one by emotions and intuition. Pawe? Szyma?ski’s Qudsja Zaher speaks directly to our right hemispheres. This is the first Polish eschatological opera with an after-life plot. A concept worthy of Stockhausen’s The Song of Praise of the Three Youths in a Burning Furnace. But Maciej J. Drygas libretto paints an underwater netherworld, a harbour of the forgotten drowned humans. The Afghan woman Qudsja, who has offered her life for a group of refugees, is waiting for a promise of eternity in such a limbo – pierced by the atonal sobbing of the dead and the tought recitatives of the guardians of childhood memories. But before she is granted eternity she will discover her fate in the story of a Viking tribe woman from a thousand years ago. This is so because time takes away from the victims of history’s cruelties even their identity and turns them into shadows,


TERYTORIA (TERRITORIES). A series of meetings with contemporary music - meetings in which we try to discover and sketch a new image of opera. The genre is changing its definition today, conquering new territories, drawing new meanings, proposing a new aesthetic. In this cycle we present the greatest works of contemporary music alongside debuts of Polish composers, works that are completely unknown next to classics of the avant-garde, debuts of Polish directors juxtaposed with productions staged by top European names. Opera is alive, doing well, and winking at us with Fenics’ cybernetic eye.


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Operas of contemporary Polish composers are composed specially for Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera. In the past season Agata Zubel’s dramatic opera Oresteja came into being thanks to the coproduction of Teatr Wielki with Teatr Narodowy (The National Theatre). In the 2012/2013 season we shall hear Qudsja Zaher ? an opera composed by the master of contemporary music Pawe? Szyma?ski and as part of The ’P’ Project works of opera debutants i.e. Jagoda Szmytka’s for voices and hands and Wojtek Blecharz’ Transcryptum. We may expect Eugeniusz Knapik’s opera Moby Dick to be staged in subsequent seasons.