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UNESCO has announced the designation of 49 new Cities to join its Creative Cities Network making for a total of 295 Creative Cities from 90 countries worldwide. Among these new Creative Cities, 3 have been designated as Creative Cities of Literature: Gothenburg, Sweden; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Vilnius, Lithuania.
There are now 42 designated Creative Cities of Literature from 31 countries across the globe. The UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature extend a warm welcome to their new sibling Cities and look forward to collaborating to promote the power of literature for sustainable and inclusive societies.
‘We warmly welcome our colleagues in the newly designated Creative Cities of Literature. We look forward to working with our new partners as we promote our values, including the need to celebrate and protect freedom of speech and expression. As our network diversifies, adding new cultural perspectives, new languages, and new stories, we strengthen the base from which we do that work.’ (John Kenyon, Executive Director, Iowa City UNESCO Creative City of Literature and Creative Cities of Literature Network Lead)
The UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) was created by UNESCO in 2004 and gathers Cities that have positioned culture and creativity as strategic enablers for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Network recognises Cities from the seven creative fields of Craft and Folk Art, Design, Film, Gastronomy, Literature, Media Arts, and Music. Designated Creative Cities place creativity at the core of their development to enhance inclusivity, safety, and sustainability.
For more information:
UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN): https://en.unesco.org/creative-cities/home
UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature Network: https://www.citiesoflit.com/
“Reykjavík UNESCO Creative City of Literature celebrates its ten-year anniversary in 2021. Hosting the Cities of Literature Annual Meeting made this milestone birthday very special, and organising a hybrid meeting on this scale was highly educational. It will benefit both the network and Reykjavík City generally as we further develop this new way of working together globally. As always, the Reykjavík team came out of the conference with new ideas, new connections, and further plans for cooperation and this international meeting was also highly valuable for the local literary community.” (Kristín Ingu Viðarsdóttir, Project Manager, Reykjavík UNESCO Creative City of Literature)
Reykjavík UNESCO Creative City of Literature welcomed 31 representatives from 21 Creative Cities of Literature for the hybrid Creative Cities of Literature Annual Conference (6 to 10 September), and the same number of delegates took part remotely from Creative Cities of Literature around the world. The theme of the Conference was Conversation and Inspiration – Reconnect in Reykjavík, focusing on the need for Cities to reconnect after a time of relative isolation brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Cities shared what they had learned and offered best practice for recovery and equity of opportunity in communities, and planned residencies, future collaborations, and mentoring and cooperation within the growing Network.
‘The UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature have used the time during the global pandemic to explore new ways to support readers and writers in our communities, knowing the connection afforded by literature is needed more than ever in these isolating times. Our annual meeting in Reykjavík allowed us to share what we have learned with one another and to discuss how we can strengthen our collaborations globally through the virtual tools that have become commonplace. To do so in a beautiful city like Reykjavík, where we had the opportunity to see in person the work being done by writers, artists, creators, programmers and so many others, brought home how vital that work can be.’ (John Kenyon, Executive Director, Iowa City UNESCO Creative City of Literature and Creative Cities of Literature Network Lead)
The delegates experienced Reykjavík‘s literary and cultural landscape and met authors, translators, booksellers, and other key players on the City‘s literary scene. Reykjavík also published a collection of new essays on creativity and writing by 14 local authors, launched at the Reykjavík International Literary Festival which coincided with the Creative Cities of Literature Annual Conference. During a visit to the Reykjavík City Library, delegates presented the Library with children’s books from their City, in keeping with a tradition established at previous Creative Cities of Literature Annual Conferences. Literacy was a key theme of the Conference, and Reykjavík’s anniversary year had in fact commenced with a book gift for all children in the City celebrating their first birthday, along with reading tips for their parents.
About the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN): Created in 2004, the UNESCO Creative Cities Network gathers 246 cities from over 80 UNESCO Member States that have positioned culture and creativity as strategic enablers for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the local level. The Network covers the seven creative fields of Crafts and Folk Art, Design, Film, Gastronomy, Literature, Media Arts, and Music. Thirty-nine UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature from 28 countries are currently members of the Network and collaborate actively and closely to promote the power of literature for sustainable and inclusive societies.
For more information on the UCCN, please visit: https://en.unesco.org/creative-cities/home
To learn more about the UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature Network: https://www.citiesoflit.com/
The Creative Cities of Literature press pack is here.
Maarten van der Graaff from the Netherlands and Ostap Ukrainiets from Ukraine are this year’s residents of the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature. They will work on their latest texts during a two-month stay at the Villa Decius. For them, it is a time of intensive work, exploring the city and developing contacts in the literary industry.
Maarten van der Graaff has been working as a poet and writer in the Netherlands for 7 years now. His first collection of poems, Vluchtautogedichten (Getaway car poems), was awarded the C. Buddingh’-prize, a prestigious prize for debut collections. He teaches at the Radboud University in Nijmegen and ArtEZ in Arnhem. In recent years was a resident of the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht and read at bookstores and festivals in London, Lviv, Zagreb, and Sydney.
The second resident Lviv-bound writer and translator from Ivano-Frankivsk Ostap Ukrainiets finished National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, has a master’s degree in comparative literature studies. Started out as a writer in 2017 with a novel “Malchut”, which was dubbed as “Debut of the Year” by the Village magazine. Since then he published novels “Trance” and “Crusade Chancellery”, which both got a warm public reception. Ostap writes in genres of historical and weird fiction, often referring to cultural heritage and historical anecdotes.
Maarten van der Graaff and Ostap Ukrainiets will stay in the Łaski House, in the guest rooms of the Villa Decius Institute for Culture, a partner of the project. Their stay in Krakow gives them an opportunity to work on literary texts in the friendly environment of Decius Park and, at the same time, to participate in the literary life of the city and present their work to Krakow audiences.
The Krakow UNESCO City of Literature Residency Program is dedicated to writers, poets and translators from the Cities of Literature of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. It aims to promote the Cities of Literature Network, provide writers with a platform to showcase their work and talent to a Central European audience, support greater diversity of voices and literatures on the Polish and Central European book market and offer local writers the chance to create links with international writers as well. In the past, as part of the programme, Krakow hosted artists from such countries as Great Britain, New Zealand, Ukraine, Spain or Australia.
The Residency Programme for authors from UNESCO Cities of Literature is one of a bunch of such projects implemented by Kraków UNESCO City of Literature, along with the International Cities of Refuge Network ICORN, the Kraków-Angoulême exchange residency, a residency programme for translator and residencies for winners of literary prizes.
The programme is implemented by KBF – a cultural institution of the City of Krakow in cooperation with the Villa Decius Institute for Culture.
Krakow, Gdańsk and Warsaw joined forces with the Literary Union Association and the Association of Literary Translators to jointly launch the Literary Residencies project. The literaryresidenciespoland.pl website is the first platform of its kind, fully devoted to creative residencies and fellowships for writers and translators. The project was inaugurated on the World Book and Copyright Day with a debate featuring Antonia Lloyd-Jones – translator of Olga Tokarczuk’s prose – and writer Jacek Dehnel.
Creative residencies for writers and translators are a long-standing and beautiful tradition in Europe – Martin Luther worked on his translation of the Bible while in hiding at the Wartburg Castle, the French Academy in Rome has been offering fellowships since the early 18th century, and Rainer Maria Rilke wrote his Duino Elegies as a guest of the eponymous Duino Castle. What did not change from the very beginning was offering residents a place, where they can work for a couple of weeks or months, fully focused on their work, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, all while being able to network – something that is crucial for authors of literature, who often have to deal with loneliness and solitude in their work.
A new destination for literary residencies
To celebrate the World Book and Copyright Day, we have launched the literaryresidenciespoland.pl website – the first platform of its kind dedicated to literary residencies, which came to be as a result of a joint initiative of the Krakow Festival Office – operator of the Krakow – UNESCO City of Literature Programme, Institute of Urban Culture in Gdańsk, and the Old Town Cultural Centre in Warsaw, undertaken jointly with the Literary Union Association and the Association of Literary Translators. This virtual database of information about open calls for proposals, previous fellowship holders, hosting institutions, as well as fellowship programmes for writers and translators in Poland and abroad is supplemented by the Literary residencies: open calls for writers and translators group on Facebook, which will be used to disseminate information about open calls for creative fellowships, as well as sharing experiences of stays at various destinations.
The kick-off of the project was accompanied by a debate entitled “Writing – but where?” What experiences do authors have with literary residencies? What are the outcomes of exposure and contact with other literary circles? How does the artist contribute to the cultural history in their destination? Participants of international residency projects – Belarusian poet Julia Cimafiejewa, translator of works by eminent contemporary Polish writers and reporters, including Stanisław Lem and Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones from the United Kingdom, as well as Aleš Šteger, Slovenian writer and poet – talked about literary residencies in Poland and abroad and how the atmosphere and the history of a given space impact the experience of creative work. The debate was moderated by translator Justyna Czechowska and writer Jacek Dehnel. You can watch the recording HERE.
Literary residencies in Poland
To date, numerous Polish writers and translators took advantage of the international residency offering. Some of the most prominent ones include Olga Tokarczuk, who wrote a significant part of her Books of Jacob in Graz, while her stay in the Swiss town of Zug inspired one of her Tales of the Bizarre; Anna Wasilewska translated Jan Potocki’s Saragossa Manuscript and Italo Calvino’s American Lessons abroad, while Magdalena Heydel translated Alice Oswald’s Monument in Visby – later, she reminisced: “The sense of detachment from mainland affairs, characteristic for the island, gave me the space I needed to focus on such an extensive poem.” In some cases, residencies inspire new works – Żanna Słoniowska wrote her Wyspa (The Island) due to her stay in Visby on the Swedish isle of Gotland, and Dorota Masłowska was inspired to write her Jesień w Szanghaju (Autumn in Shanghai) in similar circumstances.
An increasing number of Polish institutions offer stays, during which Polish and international writers and translators can live together, all while working and getting involved with the local circles, contributing to the local cultural history. As such, the residencies not only allow the audience to meet and encounter world-famous authors, but they also serve as a great promotion for cities and regions.
For many years now, Krakow has been extending its offering of literary residencies to authors and writers, initially mainly as part of international programmes addressed to authors from the UNESCO Cities of Literature network. With time, the residency offering started growing to include fellowships for winners of awards (such as Paszport Polityki and the Conrad Award), as well as local residencies. To date, Krakow welcomed dozens of fellows from all corners of the world, including Australia, Spain, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. In 2011, Krakow was the first city in Central and Eastern Europe to join the ICORN International Cities of Refuge Network, and currently hosts the ninth fellow to take advantage of the support – Angolan poet, performer and activist Aaiún Nin.
Gdańsk, Kraków and Warsaw decided to join forces with the Literary Union Association and the Association of Literary Translators to jointly offer a new fellowship programme, extending the offering of residencies with three new exceptional destinations – the Potocki Palace in the heart of Krakow – near its Main Market Square, a house right next to the Oliwa Park in Gdańsk, in the Oliwa district, which constitutes a key part of the literary landscape of the Tri-City, as well as on the borderline of the Old Town and Powiśle.
Ongoing calls
The first residency programme for translators, who translate literary works into the Polish language, organised by Krakow – UNESCO City of Literature, has already been launched. The offer is addressed to authors, who have at least one book translation published in print, and who are currently working on a translation project. In addition to accommodation and reimbursement of travel costs, participants will also receive a salary of 2,000 PLN gross. The objective of these residencies is to support translators by offering them the conditions that will enable them to focus on their translation work for 30 days. What is more, throughout the entire stay, the fellows can count on networking support provided by the Krakow – UNESCO City of Literature staff. The deadline for submitting applications is 4 May. You can find out more about the offer HERE.
The Old Town Cultural Centre in Warsaw has also opened a call for applications for its literary residency programme for translators and writers, opening its doors to visitors from Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, who will get an opportunity to spend a couple of creative weeks in the heart of the city. The two open calls will result in a selection of at least five residents, who will be able to take part in 2-6 week stays organised in May-June and July-December. By organising its residencies, the OTCC wants to invite international writers and translators to become a part of Warsaw’s literary world, encouraging them to spend a couple of weeks in Warsaw and discover the local art scene, explore the history of the city and take advantage of its cultural offering. The residents can take advantage of an apartment in the heart of the city with a comfortable space for creative work, professional and logistical support, a grant of 840 PLN gross per week, all while getting involved in the institution’s everyday operations. The deadline for submitting applications is 7 May (first call) 30 June (second call). You can find out more about the residency HERE.
The Literary Residencies programme is carried out by the Krakow Festival Office – operator of the Krakow – UNESCO City of Literature programme, Institute of Urban Culture in Gdańsk, and the Old Town Cultural Centre in Warsaw within the framework of the partnership of three Polish cities – Krakow, Gdańsk and Warsaw. The activities within the programme are supported by two artists’ associations: the Literary Union Association and the Association of Literary Translators.
As every year, Krakow UNESCO City of Literature joins the international celebrations of World Poetry Day. This year we move to the online reality and celebrate not only at the weekend.
World Poetry Day is a holiday celebrated annually on March 21, established by UNESCO in 1999. Its aim is to support linguistic diversity through poetry and to promote the literature of small languages.
In Krakow, we will highlight poetry on Saturday, March 20. On the wall of the Potocki Palace, poems by poets from various UNESCO Cities of Literature will be displayed. Look out for a special edition of “Multipoetry”, a poetic multimedia project of the Poemat Foundation, on the wall of the tenement house at the corner of Bracka Street. The poems in Polish and English will be available to read until Sunday.
On March 21, we invite all poetry enthusiasts to the PLAY KRAKÓW platform. At 6.00 p.m. there will be a premiere of a virtual tour of Czesław Miłosz’s apartment. 6 Bogusławskiego Street in Krakow – this is the address where the poet lived after returning to Poland in 1993 and spent the last 11 years of his life. From here he would go to the Noworolski Cafe, visiting the office of Tygodnik Powszechny at Wiślna Street, to finally do some small shopping and chat with the owner of a small shop at Bogusławskiego 4.
Joanna Zach, the author of the book “Miłosz and the Poetics of Confession”, head of the Czesław Miłosz Center, and Andrzej Franaszek, author of the book “Miłosz: A Biography”, will talk about the home, work, loves, and sufferings of the Nobel Prize winner. “The space we are in is a kind of text that we can read and understand. Through the items gathered here, we can tell a story about the life of Czesław Miłosz, ”says Franaszek.
Also on Sunday, on our Facebook profile, you will find a video with Jakub Kornhauser, who selected and read three of his poems, especially for World Poetry Day.
Throughout the weekend, we also invite you to the profile of the Miłosz Festival, where we will soon present the idea of the jubilee, the tenth edition of the festival, and introduce the first guests.
On Tuesday, March 23 at At 6.00 p.m. on the Facebook profile of Krakow UNESCO City of Literature, we will meet Aaiún Nin – a poet, performer, and activist from Angola, who is just starting her two-year residency as part of the ICORN International Cities of Refuge Network. Her poetry draws from childhood and youth experiences in a traditional patriarchal community and is deeply rooted in the context of postcolonial African history. In her poems, the artist often refers to the situation in Angola, incl. addressing the issues of sexual violence against women, religious fundamentalism, social inequalities, and racism, as well as the experiences of LGBT + people. The meeting will be hosted by Aleksandra Lipczak.
How do booksellers in Edinburgh, Barcelona, Prague and other UNESCO Cities of Literature cope with the pandemic? What practices can Krakow bookshops boast in this respect? We invite you to take part in a cycle of virtual meetings of the booksellers’ industry where participants can share their knowledge and inspirations on the forum of 39 UNESCO Cities of Literature around the world.
Unconventional methods of delivery, the development of e-shops, unobvious ways of getting noticed on Facebook and Instagram – these are only some of the activities undertaken recently by booksellers in order to face the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. What is the current situation of the industry in various countries? What has the pandemic taught us and what should we expect in the future?
Meetings will be held in the form of three moderated discussions that will be opened by short presentations of selected bookshops from four UNESCO Cities of Literature: Krakow, Edinburgh, Barcelona and Prague. The presentations are aimed at introducing the main subject and inspiring a further discussion.
We cannot visit one another, but we can meet virtually!
Schedule of meetings (according to Central European Time – GMT +1):
23rd February, 7:00 p.m.
Presentations: Edinburgh (Lighthouse Bookshop), Krakow (Karakter Bookshop)
23rd March, 7:30 p.m.
Presentations: Barcelona (Llibreria Documenta), Krakow (Café NOWA Bookshop)
13th April, 7:00 p.m.
Presentations: Prague (Book Therapy), Krakow (Massolit Books)
Host of the discussion: Krzysztof Żwirski
We meet via Microsoft Teams platform. Participation in discussions is free and devoid of territorial restrictions; the number of places is limited.
Registration: kontakt@miastoliteratury.pl
Please write ‘Resilient Bookshops’ in the title of your e-mail and the name of the bookshop you represent in the content. The link to the meeting will be sent in the reply to your enrolment e-mail.
Meetings will be held in English and translated consecutively into Polish.
The cycle is organised by the Krakow Festival Office – the operator of the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature programme, including strategic actions for the support and development of the local bookselling industry. The Krakow bookshop support programme includes, e.g., a rent discount system in municipal premises, an annual programme of support of cultural activities in bookshops and a programme of promotion of books published under the patronage of KUCL. During the 1st pandemic wave, the Krakow Festival Office implemented Resilient Bookshops – a support & protection programme that covered 23 bookshops in Krakow.
UNESCO Creative Cities Network is an international programme aimed at promoting and developing industries that determine the cultural identity of the world’s cities. The Cities of Literature network currently consists of 39 cities, including Edinburgh, Dublin, Norwich, Nottingham, Reykjavík, Barcelona, Grenada, Milan, Heidelberg, Prague, Ljubljana, Lviv or Melbourne. Krakow joined the Cities of Literature in 2013; the capital of Małopolska was the seventh city in the world to receive this prestigious title.
Program experiments, the search for new media and strengthening close, albeit virtual, contact with the audiences were the main experiences of the cultural milieu in Krakow UNESCO City of Literature in 2020.
At the outset of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, we rapidly prepared a toolkit to support the local cultural sector, aptly named Kultura odporna – or Resilient Culture. The municipal initiative constituted a rapid response to the needs of cultural communities – including the literary one, which suddenly had to face an unexpected crisis. Small bookstores, antiquarian bookshops and literary projects run by writers, artists, translators and cultural managers associated with the city were all supported financially within the framework of the project.
The Księgarnie odporne — Resilient Bookstores program, which was carried out between April and June, helped 23 Krakow bookshops through the most difficult first months of the pandemic. Last year also brought us the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature Award, which was presented to 41 book projects that refer to the city’s literary heritage. The total prize pool exceeded 200,000 PLN and the support was granted to established authors, as well as new names and faces on the literary market.
The changing times present new opportunities for innovative technologies, which we found out when we once again organised our national campaign for promoting reading — Czytaj PL! — Read PL!. In autumn, our virtual e-book library was used by more than 47,000 readers from 30 Polish cities, who downloaded a total of 110,000 books made available by the publishers, who joined us in the campaign. Other UNESCO Cities of Literature, including Nottingham, Seattle, Lviv, Manchester, Heidelberg, Milan, Norwich, Reykjavik, Edinburgh, Quebec and Exeter have joined the initiative, allowing readers around the world to discover new Polish publications for free.
In spite of the circumstances, which left a lot to be desired, we continued to carry out international cooperation and exchange programmes within the framework of the UNESCO Cities of Literature Network and the ICORN International Cities of Refuge Network. In the summer of 2020, a two-year residency of the Syrian poet Kholoud Sharaf in Krakow came to an end. In autumn, we were joined by two poets — Ana Llurba from Barcelona and Brynja Hjálmsdóttir from Reykjavik, who spent two months in Krakow pursuing their creative endeavours, getting to know the city and working on their personal projects.
Krakow was present at several important international events, most notably at the UNESCO Cities of Literature virtual meeting, where we showcased the Resilient Bookstores programme. In November, we attended the City of inspiration conference organised by Lviv, where we talked about our membership in the ICORN network. We also joined the conference organised by the Norse Freemuse organisation, which announced its report on the situation of LGBT artists in Krakow.
The international CELA — Connecting Emerging Literary Artists — project, which we are partnered with, also launched in 2020. The aim of the project is to help young writers and translators from nine European language communities to grow their international careers under the guidance of experienced mentors. In spite of the fact that the ongoing pandemic somewhat thwarted our plans, all participants managed to meet twice – live in Brussels in January 2020 and online during the Re-connect meeting. The first translations of the texts by the writers involved in the project were also already prepared – we are looking forward to them being published soon!
Last year’s editions of the two largest literary festivals in Krakow were particularly special, as for the first time in history they were held entirely online. The virtual edition of the Conrad Festival (19– 25 October 2020) was inspired by writers, translators and literary critics from Poland and abroad, including Elif Şafak, Etgar Keret, Roy Jacobsen and Adeline Dieudonné. The festival culminated in the traditional Conrad Award gala – where the author of the best Polish literary debut of the year selected by the readers receives the prestigious prize. The festival was enriched by a number of accompanying events, including another instalment of an innovative project that brings together the worlds of film and literature — Word2Picture, as well as the Book Congress, during which we talked about the challenges faced by the publishing market and the literary community in Poland. The thirteenth edition of the festival took place on Facebook and the new VOD platform – PLAY KRAKÓW. This has led to more than 80,000 views and a total coverage of more than 500,000 – all thanks to videos, animations and electronic content shared via social media.
Last year’s edition of the Miłosz Festival was also organised online, held under the apt headline New Focal Point; however, this time around the events were spread from June to December. As a result of the festival, 5 new poetry volumes by distinguished international guests were published in Poland. These include works by Agi Mishol, Alice Oswald, Peter Gizzi, Ivan Štrpka and Anthony Joseph.
Literary education holds a particularly important place in the programme of Krakow — UNESCO City of Literature. We took care of the well-being of parents and children, who had to endure closed kindergartens and schools during the first surge of the coronavirus cases together with the guests of the web series Czytanie na drugie śniadanie — Reading for Lunch (March – April). In 44 episodes of the series broadcast daily on the KUCL Facebook fanpage, some of the best-known and popular Polish writers read for the youngest audiences.
Work on the Planeta Lem Literature and Language Centre in Krakow is slowly picking up pace. A modern educational facility under the patronage of the author of Solaris will be built in Krakow’s Zabłocie district by 2024. The traditional September birthday celebrations of the most translated Polish author of all times encompassed premières of theatre plays prepared by Teatr Ludowy, Groteska and Łaźnia Nowa. These events were accompanied by debates and a popular science convention Filozofikon, developed by the Pedagogical University of Krakow. These events heralded Stanisław Lem’s 100th birthday and a number of events and initiatives planned as part of the Year of Lem in 2021.
These are just some of the activities we have been able to carry out together with our partners. We dare say that literature is doing surprisingly well in the new normal – at least in Krakow. This does not mean that the work is over – 2021 with even more exciting literary challenges and ambitious plans is just starting!
Last year’s Opera Rara Festival was held just before the outbreak of the pandemic. The world was turned upside-down soon after, and music and culture were forced to completely change track. The festival returns in a new reality, with a quote from the Greek poet Sappho “Stand up and look at me, face to face, my friend” as its motto.
This year’s Opera Rara Festival will be held online, naturally on the PLAY KRAKÓW platform. It is important to us in these difficult times to remember fans of the beautiful genre of opera. The pandemic is posing ever new challenges, yet recent months have shown that we can and will act: we are creating new events, bringing artists and audiences together, building bridges and conducting dialogue. I hereby present the programme of this year’s festival, although I should add that exact dates are yet to be confirmed. We hope that you will join us this year as just you have before! says Izabela Błaszczyk, Director of KBF.
As masks have become an essential everyday prop, we have been looking more closely into one another’s eyes, searching for emotions. And it is these emotions which mark the beginning of understanding and finding humanity in one another. This is something we really need in this time of anxiety, uncertainty and fear, and it is something explored by works presented at this year’s festival.
Welcome to the 2021 Opera Rara Festival! We are boldly standing up to the adversities facing today’s world and the arts and education in particular, since we see it as our duty to shape reality into a poetic form. We present spectacles, concerts, educational events and activities popularising opera. Our aim is to fill our everyday lives with meaning, and we do this by breaking the rules, because it’s what makes life beautiful. Festival events will be spread over several months. This is a major change, but it sets a new precedent and gives us an opportunity to turn the festival into an important event in Kraków’s cultural calendar. Opera Rara brings spectacles, concerts and meetings, and it means curiosity in the world around us, seeking new paths, breaking stereotypes and changing the way we think – as the great dramatist Wyspiański once said, “art and free thinking – fearless gods”, adds Jan Tomasz Adamus, artistic director of the festival.
The Opera Rara Festival opens with Henry Purcell’s “Dido & Aeneas”, streamed on PLAY KRAKÓW on 1, 2 and 3 February. The opera, first presented at the festival in 2017, has been adapted into a stage version by Natalia Iwaniec. The director and choreographer seeks inspiration from Sicilian Baroque architecture and the Gaga dance vocabulary developed in the late 20th century. The performance resounds with interpersonal conflict and emotions described by Purcell through music.
Benedetto Marcello’s “Cassandra” also returns to the festival repertoire, this time as a solo performance, presenting a major challenge for the charismatic counter-tenor William Towers. Director Tomasz Cyz combines the Baroque work with David Lang’s contemporary composition “Just” and, for the first time in the festival’s history, Salvatore Sciarrino’s “Vanitas” – a poetic meditation on evanescence and transience for solo mezzo-soprano, performed by Natalia Kawałek. The spectacle will be streamed on 7, 9, 10 and 12 February. Alban Berg’s “Lyrical Suite” and Anton Webern’s “Langsamer Satz” are also streamed on 7 February. They will be performed by Airis String Quartet, with Berg’s composition featuring the soprano Dorota Szczepańska singing a “secret” part handwritten by the composer on a single copy of the score discovered in the 1970s.
“Il ballo delle Ingrate” is Claudio Monteverdi’s mischievous morality play, presented at last year’s festival. It tells the story of ties between life and death, humans and gods, and – most importantly – men and women. Director Magda Szpecht enters into dialogue with the 17th-century librettist to ask pointed questions about the nature of these ties. The Baroque score is complemented by Teoniki Rożynek’s contemporary composition.
“Così fan tutte” was, for a long time, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s least well-received opera, with the libretto stirring the most controversy. The opera finally returned to favour in the mid-20th century, and ever since then it has been at least as popular as Mozart’s other works. Previously shown at the 2019 festival, the spectacle is directed by Cezary Tomaszewski, always bringing elements of the unexpected to his productions. Music direction comes from Jan Tomasz Adamus.
In turn, Péter Eötvös’ “Der goldene Drache” (“The Golden Dragon”) is a newcomer to Opera Rara. The Hungarian composer’s dazzling music was inspired by the libretto by Roland Schimmelpfennig, telling the story of illegal immigrants in Europe. The tragicomic, absurd, grotesque and in places brutal opera is an important element in any discussion on immigration, as is its universal – and painful – message.< It is directed by Karolina Sofulak (producer of last year’s “Vanda”) and performed by the Spółdzielnia Muzyczna Contemporary Ensemble under the baton of Edo Frenkel.
Dates of “Il ballo delle Ingrate”, “Così fan tutte” and “Der goldene Drache” will be announced in due course.
The Opera Rara 2021 Festival is organised by the City of Kraków, KBF and Capella Cracoviensis.