The Miracle, or Cracovians and Highlanders – Wojciech Bogusławski and Jan Stefani | #music

The Miracle, or Cracovians and Highlanders – Wojciech Bogusławski and Jan Stefani

Wojciech Bogusławski’s Singspiel, with music by Jan Stefani, is considered the most artistically perfect Polish opera work of the 18th century. In its light and witty form, it contained clear pro-independence messages – suffice it to say that a month after the premiere, the Kościuszko Uprising broke out.

From Italian soil

Warsaw was the first city outside Italy where opera appeared. It was brought to Poland by King Władysław IV, who was enchanted by the performances he watched during his travels in Italy. The next ambassadors of the art of opera on Polish soil were the Saxons – creators of the first public theatre in the country – and finally King Stanisław August Poniatowski.

Although Italian productions still led the way, there was finally a flourishing of works created by Poles, in the Polish language. As Małgorzata Komorowska writes about this era, 50 Polish operas by 13 composers were written at the time, but only eight of them have survived. The first one presented to the public was Nędza Uszczęśliwiona (Misery Made Happy) from 1778, with a libretto by Wojciech Bogusławski based on a text by Franciszek Bohomolec and music by Maciej Kamiński. Bogusławski was a versatile artist: an actor, singer, director, writer and translator, as well as theatre director. He was one of the most important figures on the cultural scene at the time – so much so that he lived to be nicknamed ‘the father of Polish theatre’.

A wake-up call to the uprising?

Bogusławski’s most famous work The Miracle, or Cracovians and Highlanders (Cud Mniemany, czyli Krakowiacy i Górale) premiered on 1st March 1794 at the National Theatre in Warsaw – just a month before the outbreak of the Kościuszko Uprising. The music for the Singspiel was written by Jan Stefani, of Czech descent, while the set design was created by Antoni Smuglewicz. The role of Bardos, a highly individualised character, was played by the author of the libretto himself, both at the first three and later shows (Zbigniew Raszewski wrote: ‘Bogusławski probably played him more than a hundred times’).

The premiere of the play is considered the apogee of the period. Although The Miracle is sometimes referred to as an opera (even the creator himself said so), it is more often referred to as a song-play – a drama with sung parts. The genre is compared to the Italian Opera buffa or the French Opéra comique, as well as to vaudeville – a drama and musical performance of a light comedy character, with the predominance of spoken parts over musical ones, as was also the case with The Miracle. The work contained numerous patriotic and political accents, and was embellished with Polish rhythms and folk dances such as the polonaise, krakowiak and mazur, while the first performances ended with a performance of the ballet Werbunek. The characters’ arias were undoubtedly topical in their portentous meaning. ‘Bogusławski’s play was not revolutionary, but it expressed sympathy for the revolution’, Raszewski wrote. In The Miracle, audiences saw Muscovites invading Polish lands, and in the dialogues one saw motives for insurrection. Raszewski wrote:

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The public paid little attention to Bardos’ humanitarianism. At every mention of the fight against the Highlanders, “the entire first floor, the boxes, the galleries, the parades roared with applause, shook with stomping”. Four times all the actors were called back on stage. The influx of audiences was unheard of. They played on Saturday, Sunday and even on Monday, although they usually did not play on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. [...]. It was too much. The day after the premiere, the arrests began.

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A scene from the production of 'The Miracle, or Cracovians and Highlanders' at the Grand Theatre – National Opera, 2015, dir. Jarosław Kilian, photo: Krzysztof Bieliński/Grand Theatre – National Opera, Warsaw

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After the third performance, the play was taken off the bill. Bogusławski managed to avoid being arrested – he probably staged the play anonymously and was able to deny it, blaming the emigrants. Perhaps his acquaintances also helped him.

The premiere delighted audiences, both Poles and Russians staying in Warsaw, but after three performances the Russian ambassador Osip Igelström, who also commanded Russian forces in Poland, forbade further performances. The Miracle was revived by Bogusławski in Lviv in 1796 and returned to Polish stages, played continuously until the mid-19th century, enriched with current interludes.

The Plot

The subject of the story is a dispute between Cracovians and Highlanders. The action of the work takes place at the end of the 18th century near Kraków, in the village of Mogiła in Lesser Poland, and the main characters are young lovers: Stach and Basia. Standing in the way of their relationship is Basia’s stepmother, Dorota, who herself is trying to seduce her stepdaughter's beloved, while Basia’s father, the old miller Bartłomiej, has promised his daughter to the highlander Bryndas. The play begins when Stach notices boats with Highlanders approaching on the River Wisła, among them Bryndas, who is heading for the engagement. Stach decides to take a risk – he goes to Dorota and asks for the young girl’s hand. The stepmother is even ready to agree, but on the condition that after the marriage of the young couple she can continue to court Stach, and he does not remain frigid towards her. The boy cannot agree to this. When he talks to Basia about the troubles, they are overheard by Bardos, a poor student from Kraków, whose only possessions are books and an electric machine. He listens to the youngsters’ dilemmas and decides to help them.

As the Highlanders celebrate Bryndas’s imminent engagement with dances, following Bardos’s advice, the youngsters openly declare their love to everyone gathered and that Basia’s preference is to marry Stach. This news drives the Highlanders to fury. Bryndas vows revenge for the insult and he and his friends sail away in boats. Stach further carries out Bardos’s plan – he goes to Dorota and declares to her that he agrees to the conditions she has set and will accept her advances after marrying Basia. When the stepmother gives her consent to the wedding and it seems that everything will go according to the heroes’ ideas, news arrives of the revenge of the Highlanders, who have taken all the cattle from the pastures and are herding them towards Kraków to make money there on the looted cattle. The Cracovians, eager to defend themselves and take back what is theirs, arm themselves with sticks, flails and other random tools, then set off in pursuit of the Highlanders for a brawl.

Meanwhile, Bardos ponders how to prevent a fight and the spilling of fraternal blood – he decides to use his electric machine. When the poor student starts it up by pulling a wire across the field, the Highlanders fleeing from the Cracovians are electrocuted and fall to the ground. Bardos stops the Cracovians from beating those lying down, while he orders the Highlanders to get up and give up the cattle. The unruly Highlanders want to flee, but fall again electrocuted. ‘Miracle! Miracle! Miracle!’ – they exclaim, attributing magical abilities to Bardos. The student orders the Cracovians and Highlanders to reconcile, which they do.

Bardos later explains to the Cracovians that it was no miracle and rationally explains the events. All that is needed for a happy ending is for Dorota to leave the young and forget about her amors with Stach once and for all. In agreement with the youngster, Bardos tells Basia to hide in an old willow tree, under which Stach and Dorota come. The stepmother, as usual, makes advances toward the boy. In turn, the latter rejects her advances and refuses to kiss her. At this Bardos leads Bartłomiej. Frightened by the discovery of the affair, Dorota tells Stach to hide in an old beehive in the willow tree. Bartłomiej, although he did not catch his wife, senses that the latter has just met with someone. Dorothy explains herself and defends herself, vowing to let go of her amours with Stach already, terrified that the miller will discover the young man. Bardos, to the despair of the miller, persuades Bartłomiej to check the hiding place in the willow tree. They find Stach there – but with Basia, so all suspicions are dispelled, while Basia, after what she has seen, is sure of her chosen one’s sincere love.

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New Cracovians

The success of The Miracle caused the story to live to see a sequel – which even eclipsed the original for many years. On 16th June 1816, the National Theatre in Warsaw hosted the premiere of the vaudeville play Zabobon, czyli Krakowiacy i Górale (Superstitions, or Cracovians and Highlanders), also known as Nowe Krakowiaki (New Cracovians), with music by Karol Kurpiński and lyrics by Jan Nepomucen Kamiński. The author of the libretto explained:

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I was compelled to write this opera by the scarcity of sincerely national dramatic works. The model for me was the universally loved Krakowiaki by Wojciech Bogusławski. Wanting to prolong their content, I began to weave a plot with a new one, where he left off.

Thus, the characters are the already familiar fiancées Basia and Stach, Bartłomiej the miller and his wife Dorota, Bardos and Highlanders, and an important new character appears: The Economist. The scheme of the work actually repeats the plot of the first part. Superstitions begin three days after the end of The Miracle, when the Highlanders are still in Mogiła, for confirmation of the prevailing peace. Bryndas, however, has not yet fully given up on Basia, and introduces the plot he has concocted with Dorota to bribe the Economist to prevent the girl from marrying Stache. Again, the hero becomes Bardos, who, exposing the intentions of Bryndas and the Economist, once again brings about a happy ending. Moreover, he becomes heir to the village of Mogiła, revealing that he is not a vagabond, but Jan Cnotliwski, nephew of Canon Cnotliwski, who bequeathed the lands to him. Bardos ushers in a new order (‘Deign to accept anything from me, my children. All of you, for four years, I will waive your taxes!’), dismisses the Economist from service, but forgives him his faults, while he grants Basia and Stach permission to marry and intends to move to a new farm in another village – to deprive Dorothy of any temptation.

Among other things, the plot of New Cracovians takes place at the dragon’s den and refers to the legend of the Wawel Dragon. Other elements related to folk beliefs also appear, but they are all explained rationally, such as the sorcerer, who turns out to be Bardos disguised as Bacchus. Kurpiński’s music was simple, melodic, danceable and very Polish. The Warsaw premiere was followed by premieres in Lviv, Kraków, Poznań, Vilnius and, with a German translation, Vienna (1829).

And again there were sequels to the story – The Revenge of the Economist (1860) with music by Jan Krzesiński and text by Ignacy Leszczyński, and Treasures and Ghosts (1872) with music by Kazimierz Hofman and text by Aleksander Landowski. These works, however, did not gain success and are now forgotten. Superstitions, on the other hand, returned to the stages, including in an arrangement and direction by Ludwik René staged at Warsaw’s Dramatic Theatre in 1977. Kurpiński's music was arranged by Jerzy Dobrzański, while Kamiński’s text was written by Wojciech Młynarski.

From Singspiel to National Opera

The manuscript and the first printing of The Miracle have not survived, and for some time Stefani’s score was also thought to be lost. However Singspiel, overshadowed by sequels, returned to the stage in the 20th century thanks to Leon Schiller, fascinated by Bogusławski’s work. He revived it first in 1929, staging The Miracle on the centenary of the librettist's death in Warsaw’s Old Town Square, followed by the 1946 premiere at the Polish Army Theatre in Łódź. Schiller’s version was elaborate, took on monumental proportions, and was compared to full-fledged operas. After World War II, The Miracle was staged at the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Kraków, directed by Andrzej Ziębiński (1968), and at the National Theatre in Warsaw, directed by Jerzy Kraskowski (1982), among others. One of the most recent stagings was presented at the Grand Theatre – National Opera, directed by Jarosław Kilian (premiered in 2015). The Miracle remains known as a work of great importance in the foundation of Polish opera and never ceases to impress with its folklore, dances, costumes and stylised Old Polish dialect.

Sources:

Frankowska, B. (2003). Encyklopedia Teatru Polskiego, Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Komorowska, M. Opera Narodowa w Warszawie: https://teatrwielki.pl/teatr/historia/opera-narodowa-w-warszawie/.

Kydryński, L. (1994). Przewodnik Operetkowy Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne.

Raszewski, Z. (1963). Staroświecczyzną i Postęp Czasu: O Teatrze Polskim 1765–1865, Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy.