Listening Journal No. 2

Stanislaw Moniuszko’s Halka

Stanislaw Moniuszko (1819-1872) had a similar effect upon Polish opera as his contemporary, Gioachino Rossini, did on Italian opera, even though there was never an established “Poland” during Moniuszko’s lifetime. His oeuvre contains eight completed operas, seven operettas, five masses, four ballets, and two string quartets. But he is generally remembered for three of his operas: Hrabina, Straszny Dwór, and Halka. Moniuszko worked mainly with Polish librettists including Wlodzimierz Wolski (Hrabina, Halka) and Jan Cheçinski (Straszny Dwór, Paria).
In his early years, Moniuszko often traveled to St. Petersburg where he befriended composers Mikhail Glinka and Modest Mussorgsky, as well as, the conductor Hans von Bülow. Later in his life, Moniuszko journeyed to other European countries where he met Rossini, Bedrich Smetana, and Franz Liszt. All of these new acquaintances promoted Moniuszko’s music and a few of them even organized premieres outside of Poland.
Much of the success of Moniuszko’s works and the iconic image of him as the “Father of Polish National Opera” came posthumously. Parks, stamps, and currency still bear his name and image. Much of Moniuszko’s compositional output is considered to be firmly within the Polish Canon of Music, despite his almost total obscurity in the rest of Western Music.
Moniuszko’s Halka is one of his most popular works. It is the tragic tale of a young maid (Halka) who is in love with an aristocrat, Janusz. Janusz abandons Halka and her child to marry Zofia, the daughter of the Esquire. Meanwhile, Jontek, who is in love with Halka, is trying to win her over by convincing her that Janusz is a terrible person. Though despite their efforts, Janusz still marries Zofia and Halka does not fall in love with Jontek. Penniless and heart-broken, a distraught Halka laments over the death of her child and the loss of her love, Janusz. The opera ends with Halka throwing herself into a ravine and drowning at the bottom.
This recording features the Choeurs de la Radio-Télévision de Cracovie, and Stefania Woytowicz (Halka), Wieslaw Ochman (Janusz), and Andrzej Hiolski (Jontek) singing the parts of the lead characters. It was performed by the Orchestre Symphonique de la Radio Nationale Polonaise with conductor Jerzy Semkow. The orchestra comprised of strings, woodwinds (flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons), brasses (horns, trumpets), percussion (timpani) and a few uncommon instruments like the harp and tambourine. With these forces, Moniuszko allowed himself a full palette of sounds to achieve the emotional range of his opera.
The first notable characteristic of this work is that it is sung in Polish. Following the sense of nationalism established in Romantic Era, Moniuszko chose the language of that the consumers of his music spoke instead of the Classical Era standard of using Italian. His patrons could understand and relate to the opera more so than if it was in a different language.
Yet, Moniuszko’s reputation in the rest of the Western World is greatly impaired, almost to the point of total obscurity, by the use of the Polish language. Throughout Europe, the common languages used in the popular operas, and other vocal works, of the era were generally written English, Italian, French and/or German. These languages were more widespread in Europe than, for example, Polish, Svenska, and Danish. Moniuszko greatly limited the number of possible consumers by choosing Polish as his language of choice.
Language aside, Moniuszko’s Halka has the colorful inclusion of the Polish musical tradition of Chopin, the orchestral emotional dynamic of Weber, and the melodic muse of a Rossini opera. But the music tastes and styles that prevailed in Poland at the time tended to border on conservative and almost to the point of uneducated. The music that the Polish populace was consuming, during this time, were works the responded to their needs. The transcendent music of Chopin was not what they were looking for, and so the Polish people found, in Moniuszko’s work, music that spoke directly to them.
The melodies that Moniuszko employed are reminiscent of the folk music of Poland. Moniuszko, much like Chopin, utilized dotted-eighth sixteenth note pattern throughout much of the opera. As opposed to Western European forms, the music has a strong emphasis on the second beat. Moniuszko explored Polish dance-forms and folk melodies throughout his operas. Act I even ends with a mazurka, but unlike those of Chopin, the intention of this mazurka was to be danced. Shortly after the prelude to Act III, there is another Polish dance, this time a góralskie. During these dances, Moniuszko utilized only the orchestral forces that not only gave the singers a break, but allowed for the cultural aspects to be that much more apparent. Moniuszko followed the musical forms of these dances exactly, and there is no use of rubato. Tempi are exact for the sole purpose of the performers on stage had to dance to these works.
Moniuszko’s opera is filled with these cultural references. He has dance-forms, like the mazurkas and polonaises, and other dances rooted in the folk traditions, like the kujawiak and krakowiak. The kujawiak being a dance in a triple-meter originating in the central region of Kujawy, that involves couples dancing in a circle. The krakowiak is a dance in a fast duple-meter full of syncopation whose steps resemble that of horses. It is a couples dance led by a male dancer/singer, who indicates the step patterns and sings the melody.
Similar to Weber, Moniuszko used the orchestra as a participant equal to the singers for dramatic effect. Moniuszko’s knowledge of the orchestra and his orchestration abilities are apparent throughout the whole of the opera. The overture opens with a line passing from the flute and clarinet, to the double reeds and then the low strings. The whole range of the orchestra is used while gradually shifting in orchestration. This idea of repeating an identical line while changing the instruments used is constantly throughout the opera. With this technique, Moniuszko allows for a slight crescendo as the line descends while retaining the audiences attention through the subtle timbral shifts.
But just clever orchestrational techniques are not the only thing Moniuszko had at his disposal. He used his orchestra almost as its own character. Unlike Rossini’s unbalanced roles of the singers versus the orchestra, Moniuszko’s idea is at the middle of the spectrum for opera writing with Rossini at one end and Wagner at the other. Moniuszko, like Weber, found an effective balance between the two groups that results in a highly dramatic result without losing the action and dialogue of the storyline.
The choir has a strong presence, becoming its own entity. Halka is not opera buffa, yet the choir acts in a similar fashion to the genre. It is there to create emphasis and provide commentary to the action of the lead roles. Moniuszko approached his choir much like he did his orchestra. He used the choir in various combinations throughout the work including having just the tenors and basses or the sopranos and altos. The choir would double the soloists’ lines or intersperse their own material within the soloists’ interaction.
With all of these advantages, one begins to wonder why works by Moniuszko, like Halka, are not placed within the Canon along with his contemporaries. The main reason for this was his lack of forward progress in terms of compositional innovation. Moniuszko was very conservative with his compositions during a time when composers stressed originality and imagination. This lack of “forward thinking” allowed Moniuszko to connect to his musically-uneducated audience in a way that Chopin could not. Moniuszko showed his great understanding and warmest regards for the Polish musical tradition throughout his opera. The inclusion of many dance-forms, folk melodies, and “Polish” rhythms all show his fluency within these genres. Yet, Moniuszko did not explore these genres beyond the established traditions. His mazurka in Act I is a textbook example of a mazurka with its triple-meter and emphasis on the second beats. It has the dotted-eighth sixteenth note figure that is common within mazurkas. Instead of expanding upon these set musical traditions and integrating them into his work, Moniuszko simply just placed them into his works. When his opera needed a dance, he composed a standard mazurka following all of the conventions of the time. Moniuszko just included Polish music in his works as oppose to fully integrating the Polish character into them.
Even with his limited innovations to the opera genre, Moniuszko became the icon of Polish opera. Halka was a work conceived entirely through the Polish culture. Moniuszko‘s librettist, Wlodzimierz Wolski, adapted the story from a work by Kazimierz Wójcicki, a famous Polish author. The use of a Polish story, with Polish dances, and a Polish text struck a deep chord with the Polish community. The music was written above their level of comprehension, it was written directly for them. Moniuszko was reaching out to the masses not the intellectual few, as Chopin was.
Like all operas, I prefer to watch one than listen to it. The visualization of the work as a whole has a far greater impact upon me than just listening to the opera. Monuiszko’s Halka is no exception. Although my comments tended to address the musical content of the opera, the perception of the work as a whole could have had an entirely different impact upon my opinions. A staged version could have just as easily had the same effect on me or I could have understood Moniuszko’s insistence on remaining within fairly standard forms. Regardless, this work has just as much right to be an established work within the Canon as many of Rossini’s operas do. Being Moniuszko’s crowning achievement in the way of establishing Polish nationalistic opera, Halka had (and still does have) an great impact upon those in Poland. If its only hindrance, in the way of being in the Canon, is due to the language it is in than Halka has no longer any reason not to be there along side the operas of Rossini and Weber.