A co-production with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, it is to be directed by Barbara Wysocka, with Canadian-Ukrainian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson as its music director. The work, inspired by the real stories, is a tribute to the Ukrainian women who are fighting to rescue their children forcibly detained by Russian authorities.
The Mothers of Kherson is to inaugurate the Polish National Opera’s 2026/2027 season, the first fully programmed by Boris Kudlička, who took over as the company’s director in September 2025.
The season’s highlights, unveiled at a press conference on Monday attended by Kudlička and Israeli-American conductor Yoel Gamzou who serves as the company’s music director, include Richard Strauss’ Salome (a co-production with Teatro Real in Madrid), Leoš Janáček’s Katya Kabanowa, Georges Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers (a co-production with Wiener Staatsoper), and Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann (a co-production with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin).
Previous seasons’ productions of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Tosca, as well as Verdi’s Falstaff, Rigoletto, and Simon Boccanegra , as well as Karol Szymanowski’s King Roger remain in the company’s staple repertoire.
The contemporary Polish opera The Best City in the World, with music by Cezary Duchnowski to a libretto by Beniamin Bukowski, based on motifs from Grzegorz Piątek's acclaimed book The Best City in the World. Rebuilding Warsaw 1945-1949, is also to be revived. It is a musical tribute to the national effort to raise Warsaw from the ruins of WWII.
Polish Culture Minister Marta Cienkowska, who was also present at the conference, described the new season’s programme as “ambitious and challenging”, expressing hope that all the new premieres, co-productions and new artists will make the 2026/27 season a real success.
(mk/jh)