WARSAW OPERA ORCHESTRA
Now called the Orchestra of the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera in Warsaw, it traces its origins back to the National Theatre directed by Wojciech Bogusławski. In that period the operatic ensemble was led by two eminent Polish composers-conductors, Józef Elsner and
Karol Kurpiński. Kurpiński also became the first director of the Teatr Wielki (Grand Theatre), which opened in 1833. Later the Orchestra was directed by, among others, Stanisław Moniuszko, and in the early 20th century – by conductors of such renown as Emil Młynarski, Artur Rodziński, and Zdzisław Górzyński.
The painstaking process of forming a new ensemble, which began after World War II, led to the emergence of Poland’s largest operatic orchestra, which has been directed or conducted by leading Polish masters of the baton, such as Witold Rowicki, Bohdan Wodiczko, Jan Krenz, Jerzy Semkow, Mieczysław Mierzejewski, Henryk Czyż, Antoni Wit, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Bogusław Madey, Antoni Wicherek, Robert Satanowski, Kazimierz Kord, Grzegorz Nowak, Andrzej Straszyński, Tadeusz Wojciechowski, and Jacek Kaspszyk. The Orchestra was also frequently guest-conducted by such well-known artists as Nello Santi, Alberto Zedda, Heinz Fricke, Hans Swarowsky, Gerhard Geist, Jansug Ivanes dze Kakhidze, Werner Seitzer, Michael Zilm, Siegfried Köhler, Elio Boncompagni, José Maria Florencio Júnior, Tiziano Severini, Enrique Diemecke, Paul Connelly, Chikara Imamura, Marc Minkowski, and Valery Gergiev.
The Orchestra has made many foreign tours and taken part in music festivals in, among others, Xanten, Carcassonne, Thessaloniki, and Wiesbaden. It has recorded Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, Moniuszko’s Halka and The Haunted Manor, as well as Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov.
Its current music director is Grzegorz Nowak.