7th edition of the ‘Arena Festival: Film & Music’ in Poland

This year’s edition of the Arena Film & Music festival will be exceptionally strongly associated with the Warmia and Mazury region. There will be music from series and shows set in our land.

A unique event on the first evening of the festival on June 30 will be the presentation of excerpts from the musical Copernicus, which had its world premiere in Frombork in May 2023. Produced by the Kraków Opera, the show, staged with flair, depicts the story of Poland’s most famous astronomer, a canon of Warmia. The musical was created to commemorate the 550th anniversary of the great scientist’s birth. The music for the show, which combines elements of puppet theater, drama and musical theater, was written by Tomasz Szymuś, popular writer Ałbena Grabowska is responsible for the libretto, while Daniel Wyszogrodzki is responsible for the lyrics. These very creators also wrote the musical Lake Season. A Warmian Christmas Story, staged at the Warmian-Masurian Philharmonic and the Cracow Opera. “Copernicus is a modern musical: broad phrasing, big instrumentation,” the composer said at the Frombork premiere. In Ostroda, we will have the opportunity to see that Copernican musical numbers also defend themselves brilliantly without a theatrical setting.

The first, “astronomical” festival evening will be complemented by music from the most famous films, performed by Katarzyna Moś, gifted with a fantastic scale and timbre of voice, and Mateusz Ziolko, soloist of the program Jaka to melodia and finalist of TVN Mam talent! We will hear Skyfall, Writings On The Wall, Escape My Heart, New York, New York, among others. The soloists will be accompanied by the Symphony Orchestra of the Warmia-Mazury Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Piotr Sulkowski. In addition to film songs, the vocalists will also perform songs from their own repertoire.

On July 1, we will be taken into a different musical world by the works of Stanislaw Syrewicz, which we will listen to on the second day of the festival, performed by Kapela ze Wsi Warszawa, Anna Czartoryska, Barbara Wrońska, Agnieszka Przekupień and the Symphonic Orchestra of the Warmia and Mazury Philharmonic under the direction of Piotr Sulkowski. Syrewicz is one of the most important Polish creators of film and theater music, author of soundtracks for TV series, as well as songs. The latter were performed by leading Polish actors, including Marek Kondrat, Daniel Olbrychski, Piotr Fronczewski, as well as Maryla Rodowicz and Magda Umer. The song Śpiewać każdy może in Jerzy Stuhr’s interpretation remains a classic to this day. The composer has worked with such prominent directors as John Frankenheimer, Ken Russell, Ferdinand Fairfax, Andrzej Zulawski and Jerzy Skolimowski. Of Stanislaw Syrewicz’s more recent works, a special place in the hearts of TV viewers and film music fans is held by the music for the series Dom nad rozlewiskiem and its sequels. The film adaptation of Małgorzata Kalicińska’s bestselling novel series, with the irreverent Małgorzata Braunek in one of the leading roles, was recorded where the books are set: in Warmia and Mazury. It is worth recalling that the title house was played by a residence located in the village of Tuławki. Of course, the series also features other Warmian and Masurian locations. Syrewicz’s idyllic, gentle music underscores the meaning of the series, in which a country house and a return to simple ties become a cure for the ills of the modern world, and Masuria grows into a mythical Arcadia.