Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are pleased to announce that the Polish Royal Opera became a partner of the exhibition BEYOND AIDA: EGYPTOMANIA ON POLISH STAGES, which can be visited from the 8th of September to the 4th of December 2022 at the Theatre Museum of Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera in Warsaw.
In 1822, Jean-François Champollion deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Rosetta stone inscriptions, based on the analysis of the Coptic language, and in 1922 Howard Carter and George Carnarvon discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun. On the bicentenary and centenary of these two important events in Egyptology, the Theatre Museum wants to familiarize audiences with the phenomenon of fascination with the history and culture of ancient Egypt, visible on theater and opera stages in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Egypt appeared in Polish theater relatively early, already in the 16th century, thanks to the biblical story of Joseph presented in the drama Żywot Józefa (‘The Life of Joseph‘) by Mikołaj Rej. However, it was not until the middle of the 18th century, with the development of knowledge about ancient Egypt, that interest in its history and culture deepened, which in the 19th and early 20th centuries went so far as to be called Egyptomania.
Over the course of more than two hundred years, we can observe the emergence of various Egypt-related themes, the most important being the story of the queen of kings – Cleopatra, who was portrayed by Poland’s brightest stars of the stage: Helena Modrzejewska, Helena Sulima, Maria Majdrowiczówna, Irena Eichlerówna, Nina Andrycz, Kalina Jędrusik, and Aleksandra Śląska, as well as Danuta Stenka at the Theatre of the Polish Radio. New motifs were inspired by foreign fashion and popular performances such as Verdi’s Aida or Wiktor Herbert’s The Wizard of the Nile. On top of that, there were also native Polish plays or adaptations of novels, including Bolesław Prus’s novel Pharaoh.
The exhibition presents documents, photographs, set designs, costumes, props, and memorabilia from museum and theatre prop collections. These will also include photographs from the performance THAMOS / MOZART at the Polish Royal Opera in July 2018.
For audience members of Teatr Wiki, the exhibition is open one hour before the performance and during intermissions. The entry is free of charge.
For visitors, the exhibition is open from Tuesday to Saturday from 12:00 to 18:00, and on Sundays from 12:00 to 17:00. Entrance through the hall with pre-sale tickets. The ticket price is PLN 1.
