Still from Halka/Haiti. Image: Barbara Kaja Kaniewska, Mateusz Golis
Dance workshops with the residents of Cazale, from Halka/Haiti. Photo by Bartosz Górka.
Grzegorz Wierus, conductor of the Poznań Opera House, with the Holy Trinity Philharmonic Orchestra of Port-au-Prince. Image: Damas Porcena (Dams)
Still from Halka/Haiti. Image: Barbara Kaja Kaniewska, Mateusz Golis
Dancers from Cazale during the performance, from Halka/Haiti. Image: Bartosz Górka.
Grzegorz Wierus, from the Poznań Opera House, conducts a rehearsal with the Holy Trinity Philharmonic Orchestra of Port-au-Prince, from Halka/Haiti. Image: Joanna Malinowska.

C.T. Jasper and Joanna Malinowska

When in 1802 Napoleon sent his Polish soldiers to quench a rebellion in French-occupied Haiti, they ended up fighting sucessfully for Haitian independence. Descendants of Polish Haitians — who were given citizenship as a result — still exist. Against the backdrop of Poland’s own occupation, meanwhile, Stanisław Moniuszko wrote the opera Halka, steeped in Polish folk culture. C.T. Jasper and Joanna Malinowska link these narratives, bringing Halka to Haiti, and exploring the (un)fixed nature of national identity. Can Polish culture resonate in such a far-off location? Moreover, can opera, often deemed an ossified relic, in fact carry radical potential as it did in Moniuszko’s day?