REVIEW – HALKA by STANISŁAW MONIUSZKO
HERITAGE OPERA, Musical Director CHRIS GILL

Lancaster Castle, Castle Park, Lancaster

Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 October 2009 at 7pm.

The North West’s own professional opera company, Heritage Opera, has scored an enviable success by mounting the British professional première of Poland’s favourite national opera.  Halka (literally ‘Helen’) by the nineteenth-century composer, Stanisław Moniuszko, is virtually unknown in this country, but deeply etched into the hearts of Poles everywhere.

The multi-layered plot follows the torment of the peasant girl Halka, raped and then abandoned, Tess-like, by local ‘aristocrat’ Janusz, who goes on to marry above his station – and for money.  Halka’s despair echoes that of the Polish people during the 1800s: their country lost its identity, crudely parcelled out between Russia, the Austrian Empire and Prussia.

But Halka is fatally determined in her love, singing about herself as ‘a white dove, coloured red with her own blood’, as the raven of oppression circles menacingly overhead.  But as Janusz’s wedding takes place, Halka can take no more, and the final dénouement is surely one of the most violent and dramatic in all operatic history.

With lyrical reflective arias, fierce arguments, shameful bourgeois posturing and bucolic celebrations, there is plenty of scope for emotional and musical variety.  Moniuszko’s fine scoring was given full voice by singers and accompanist alike.  Each one of the nine young singers, with some neat doubling and part-sharing between soloists and chorus, gave world-class performances.