He listened carefully around back then, in Berlin: in 1837, Stanislaw Moniuszko – a highly gifted musical scion of a Polish rural aristocratic family from near Minsk – came to the Prussian capital to study. He learned the craft and academic composition techniques from harmony to counterpoint from Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen, the director of the Sing-Akademie in Berlin. However, he found inspiration for his own future works primarily from the opera performances and concerts that he experienced during his three years in Germany, partly as a player and partly as a spectator.
Back home, Moniuszko soon developed into the first national composer of the Polish people – who at that time were not allowed to be a nation. The former national territory had been divided three times since 1772; Russians, Austrians and Prussians occupied it. This made cultural self-empowerment all the more important. The young composer set poems by his compatriot Adam Mickiewicz to music and incorporated traditional dances and folk songs into his operas. The national color always remains subtle, because aesthetically Stanislaw Moniuszko was a pan-European.
German models shape his scores, as do French and Italian ones. “Halka” and “Paria” sound like Donizetti and early Verdi, as one could hear at performances by the Poznan Opera in the Berlin Philharmonic in recent years. The composer’s most popular musical theater piece, “The Ghost Castle”, which the guests from the western Polish city are now presenting in concert as the finale of their Moniuszko trilogy on April 22nd, is reminiscent of play operas à la Lortzing as well as the cheerful passages from Weber’s “Freischütz”, but also at opera buffa and opéra comique.
The composer’s always very finely crafted, elegant style prevents any musical impression from arising. Moniuszko’s music for “Straszny Dwor”, as the opera is originally called, sparkles with esprit and melodic ingenuity. That fits with the cheerful story being told here. The scary effect promised by the title is just a witching hour gimmick: two young women have to resort to ghost train tricks to convince two young men that being married is ultimately more attractive than being a bachelor. Several secondary characters try to haunt them. But in the end, it can be revealed, there is a double wedding (Philharmonic Hall, April 22, 7 p.m.).