Against a backdrop of anti-government protests in Warsaw due to the integration of the Kingdom of Poland into the Russian Empire, Moniuszko wrote Straszny dwór (‘The Haunted Manor’). Within the Grand Theatre in Warsaw, the occupying forces were having the time of their lives, revelling in Jacques Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers, interspersed with excerpts from Moniuszko’s Halka. Companies of Italian artists brought with them Verdi’s La traviata and Gounod’s Faust. Polish singers at the solemnities marking the tenth anniversary of Tsar Alexander II’s coronation all but choked on the anthem of the Russian Empire.

The composer began work on The Haunted Manor in 1861, together with the actor and director Jan Checiƒski, librettist of his earlier work Verbum nobile. From the outset, the two men had in mind a comic opera with Polish accents, but matters became more complicated after the January Uprising. Although the first sketch of the score was ready on Moniuszko’s return from Paris in 1862, the composer decided to shift the accents and The Haunted Manor was transformed from a Norwidian ‘song of nature’, expressing a primal energy, into a moralistic song of weighty historical situations, a song of the nation’s social and political obligations. This opera in 4 acts, was recorded during the 20th International Music Festival ‘Chopin and His Europe’ in Warsaw 21–25 August 2024 is the work is performed in complete concert version on period instruments by soloists of the Polish National Opera, Europa Galante and conducted by Fabio Biondi.