French flute player and conductor Paul Taffanel (1844-1908) was an extraordinary virtuoso and a major figure in fin-de-siècle Parisian musical life. As the flute professor at Paris Conservatory (among his most famous students were Philippe Gaubert and Marcel Moyse) and one of the authors of the Méthode de flûte, he ushered flute-playing into the modern age. His five opera fantasies were written between 1874 and 1884. This kind of composition was hugely popular in the nineteenth century, mainly because it allowed the performer to display his or her virtuoso skills. Olga Leonkiewicz was born in Lublin, where she started to learn playing the flute in 2000 under the direction of Zbigniew Szela. In 2006 she graduated with honours from the Karol Lipiński School of Music in Lublin. She continued her education in the flute class of Professor Antoni Wierzbiński at the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz Academy of Music in Łódź, where she obtained an Honours Diploma.