After the performance ''Madame Curie'' in Tianjin, photo: S.Ćwikła/Baltic Opera Performances were held in Tianjin on 3 and 4 September at Tianjin Grand Theatre. The opera Madame Curie directed by Marek Weiss premiered in 2011 in Paris. It is performed by ten soloists, choir and a dancer from Baltic Dance Theatre. The artists are accompanied by a full symphony orchestra, with additional sounds of saxophone, accordion, electric guitars, and electronic music played from computer. The libretto is inspired by the private life of Maria Skłodowska-Curie, the only double Nobel Prize winner in the history, whose scientific achievements have changed the face of science. 'She was just a human, walking the earth like anyone else, having her own life filled with love and science in all their forms' - says the composer -'I wanted to show her from that side - the side which shows her as a full-fledged human entity, and the fact that she was a woman - it's a complete coincidence'.
The very beginning of the opera is surprising when you hear a voice from the off-stage - wrote Łukasz Rudzinski in a review. - It is a letter from a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences which Maria Skłodowska-Curie received after having been granted her second Nobel Prize, suggesting her not to accept the prize. Anna Mikołajczyk created – I do not hesitate to use the word – an outstanding portrait of Curie. Blessed with a wonderful, powerful soprano (known – which may seem ironic – mainly to lovers of early music), the opera singer executed her breakneck and full of dissonances part in phenomenal manner. She sang it with flawless intonation and great expression. She was also excellent with regard to acting' – adds Anna Pęcherzewska-Hadrych on the pages of 'Musical Movement'.
Elżbieta Sikora graduated in 1963 from the city’s High School of Music in Gdańsk. She then studied sound engineering at the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw. Upon graduation, she went to Paris to study electroacoustic music with Pierre Schaeffer and François Bayle at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (1968-70). Back in Warsaw, she took up composition studies with Tadeusz Baird and Zbigniew Rudziński. At that time, she formed, with Krzysztof Knittel and Wojciech Michniewski, the KEW Composers’ Group, with which she performed in Poland, Sweden, Austria and Germany. In 1981 she settled in France. Elżbieta Sikora’s a prolific body of work consists of over 70 works including operas, symphonic and chamber music, as well as especially revered music created with the use of new technologies. For her work the composer has received many prestigious awards.
Tianjin Grand Theatre (TGT) is an impressive, new cultural venue located in Tianjin (North China). In the first season of its operation it has built an extremely ambitious program, which successfully competes with the program of the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. TGT strategy is to build a strong program of opera stagings, which would attract audiences from Beijing.
Sources: Press materials, ed. & transl. GS, 21/08/2014
Organizers: Tianjin Grand Theatre, Baltic Opera, Culture.pl
Partner: Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Beijing
