Theatre complex at the Theatre Square, WarsawPlay in the presence of king Stanisław Augustus, 1790. The painting depicts the interior of the first National Theatre in Warsaw situated at the Krasiński Square
Opera was brought to Poland by future King Władysław IV Vasa within twenty years of the first opera presentations in Florence.[1] In 1628 he invited the first Italian opera company to Warsaw. Upon ascending the Polish throne in 1632, he built a theatre in his castle, and regular opera performances were produced there by an Italian company directed by Marco Scacchi.[2]
The first public opera-theater in Poland, the Operalnia in Warsaw, was opened on July 3, 1748.[3] It was located in the Saxon Garden (at today's intersection of Marszałkowska Street of Królewska Street) and functioned under royal patronage. The Operalnia's building was erected in 1725 at the initiative of Augustus II, costing 5000 ducats, as a rectangular structure divided into three parts.
^Melania Bucciarelli; Norbert Dubowy; Reinhard Strohm (2006). Italian opera in Central Europe. Vol. 1. BWV Verlag. pp. 26–27. ISBN3-8305-0381-4.
^Erik Kjellberg (2010). The dissemination of music in seventeenth-century Europe: celebrating the Düben collection : proceedings from the international conference at Uppsala University 2006. Peter Lang. p. 220. ISBN978-3-0343-0057-5.
^ abcInternational Theatre Institute. Polish Centre, Authors Agency (2001). Le Théâtre en Pologne: The Theatre in Poland. Authors Agency. p. 12.
^Kazimierz Braun (1996). A history of Polish theater, 1939-1989: spheres of captivity and freedom. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 28. ISBN0-313-29773-8.
