Classical Music in Poland and the Europe of Chopin - From the Reviewer's Notebook

Renaud et Armide  by Nicolas Poussin (1629) Dulwich Picture Gallery, London It is a rare event to see an authentic period performance of a French Baroque opera in Warsaw in modern times. Even rarer is a performance of Armide,  the last spectacle by the Italian-born French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687). The recent fraught history of Warszawska Opera Kameralna since the passing of its former Artistic Director Stefan Sutkowski makes an objective assessment an additional challenge. One must admire the fortitude in the attempt to resuscitate and renew the artistic inspiration of this company. Will the artistic traditions of this distinguished organization survive into the future?   To properly judge the performance of such a work it is necessary to briefly examine the musical meaning of such stage productions to a seventeenth century audience which was rather different in motivation and expectation to ourselves. Under their Apollonian Sun King Louis XIV, France enj