Bass Krzysztof Bączyk appears in the title role in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. At 33, he is on the brink of a fine international career, with performances at the Metropolitan Opera in New York during the last season and next.
The cast of the production also includes another Polish bass, Rafał Pawnuk, in the secondary part of Antonio. A regular presence in Germany and Austria, he was this year nominated for an Austrian theatre award for the role of Hunding in Wagner’s Die Walküre produced at the Stadtheater in Klagenfurt, Austria.
Baritone Łukasz Goliński appears in Salzburg next month as Priest Fotis in Bohuslav Martinu’s opera The Greek Passion.
Meanwhile, one of the Salzburg Festival’s highlights, a new production of Verdi’s Macbeth to be premiered on Saturday, is directed by Poland’s Krzysztof Warlikowski, with sets and costumes designed by his regular collaborator Małgorzata Szczęśniak.
Jacek Marczyński, music critic for the Rzeczpospolita daily, stresses in his comment the absence in Salzburg this year of singers Piotr Beczała and Tomasz Konieczny, and pianist Krystian Zimerman, who appeared there in previous years. “It is a good thing, though, that a new generation of Polish artists is entering the European circuit”, he writes.
(mk/pm)