The opening-night performance was conducted by Poland’s Marta Gardolińska, who two years ago was appointed the company’s music director.
Three more performances are planned, on May 12, 14 and 16.
The work is sung in German, the original language of the opera, with French surtitles.
The production has been recorded by France Musique for a broadcast on June 3.
The libretto, by Alfred Nossig, is based on Chata za wsią (The Cabin Behind the Wood), a novel by Polish writer Ignacy Jan Kraszewski. The opera exploits the frequent motif of a love potion to tell the story of a marriage doomed to end tragically.
The Opéra National de Lorraine company describes the work on its website as “the story of impossible and universal love, between two individuals from hostile communities."
Manru was Paderewski’s only opera. It premiered in Dresden in 1901. The performance provoked enormous interest from both critics and audiences.
In later years, Manru was performed across Europe and in America, including in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and New York.
The work remains to this day the only Polish opera ever produced at New York's Metropolitan Opera.
(mk/gs)