Warsaw Operatic Stage in the Enlightenment Europe. On the Anna Parkitna’s ‘Opera in Warsaw’

The operatic life of Enlightenment-era Warsaw has long been one of the classic fields of research in both Polish theatre history and musicology. Anna Parkitna’s book is the first attempt to present the history of foreign and Polish operatic enterprises in Stanislavian Warsaw to an English-language readership. The innovative aspects of the author’s narrative lie in her reframing of well-known facts by focusing on Warsaw as part of a transnational opera network, as well as in her efforts to define the socio-political significance of foreign opera performances in late 18th-century Warsaw.