Video streamed event and on demand: Hrabina (The Countess)New production

In times of social change in Poland, love and pride collide: Bronia loves Kazimierz, who pursues a newly-widowed Countess. After the disastrous rehearsal for the festivities, Kazimierz realises Bronia’s sincerity. The Countess, too late, seeks his affection, but he chooses Bronia, leaving the Countess humiliated as the household celebrates the young couple.

Moniuszko’s opera The Countess is many things: comic, patriotic, satirical and touching. The great Polish operatic composer of the 19th century uses humor and social critique - mocking the shallow imitation of foreign customs in Warsaw salons, while also contrasting them with sincere, patriotic, rural Polish values. This new production is the main event of the 2025 Moniuszko Festival in the Poznań theatre that bears the composer’s name. Poznań Opera has entrusted the staging to Karolina Sofulak, a director who boldly seeks the universal message in the works she stages. Adding a subtitle to the opera, The Dream of Independent Poland, Sofulak set out to offer a broader view of the opera than just as a satirical commentary on Polish society at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Will we find answers to the question of what national identity is when we look at the world created by Moniuszko and librettist Włodzimierz Wolski? And what was (and is) the role of women in its creation? And so, OperaVision continues its journey of discovery of Moniuszko’s work live here on 12 October 2025.