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Ovation for „Chopin without piano”

On Friday 20 March, during the 21st edition of International Festival of Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant, Barbara Wysocka and the Artur Rubinstein Philharmonic Orchestra in Łódź performed two Chopin concertos without piano. The spectacle produced by Centrala and directed by Michał Zadara was given a long ovation by the audience.

The spectacle “Chopin without piano” brings us closer to the answer to the question about the condition of the artist that was raised by the Festival’s artistic director Ewa Pilawska. However, this time it is not the question about the artist’s condition but about shaping his condition and identity by others –recipients, critics, musicians as well as Poles in general. What are Chopin’s works for us today? How can we listen to them – do we have a burden of patterns imposed on us? The first production of Chopin’s piano concertos without piano (the music was replaced by the text) is a reflection and a critical look for the way we receive the composer’s music. On stage Barbara Wysocka is becoming a guide to the work of Chopin while defying the fixed image of the artist. This is not against Chopin himself, this is against his name and his works.

After the spectacle there was a meeting with its director Michał Zadara which was moderated by Jacek Cieślak. The director said that Chopin was mythologized, put into national narration and that is why his music took secondary place. Instead of listening to this music we are looking for a Polish context. While talking about Chopin we used to forget him as an ailing and searching man. Instead we remember his home in Żelazowa Wola, Polish countryside, weeping birch-trees and willows. Michał Zadara told about the way he worked on the spectacle – musicological analyses, literature, conversations with musicians, rehearsals. He noticed the spectacle could be produced in this form thanks to the fact that Barbara Wysocka is a professional violinist and an actress who can very consciously interpret the music by Chopin.

Chopin without piano
director: Michał Zadara
music: Fryderyk Chopin
lightning and projections: Artur Sienicki
cast: Barbara Wysocka and the Artur Rubinstein Philharmonic Orchestra in Łódź

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