[Wikipedia] Polish Theatre in Warsaw
Polish Theatre in Warsaw (Polish: Teatr Polski w Warszawie) is a theatre in Warsaw, Poland. It is located at ul. Karasia 2. The current theatre director is Andrzej Seweryn.
The theatre was initiated by Arnold Szyfman and designed by Czesław Przybylski. Opened on 29 January 1913, the facility featured Poland's first revolving stage. It is a private enterprise staging Polish and foreign classics, contemporary drama, as well as popular plays.
The theater was taken over by the Nazis and the building damaged during World War II. It was also the first theatre to be nationalized in Poland.
Maria Modzelewska - It Happened in Monterey (Kto inny nie umiałby), 1930
Maria Modzelewska & Orkiestra Iwo Wesby’ego – Kto inny nie umiałby [Anyone Else Would Not Do It] (It Happened In Monterey) (M.Wayne – M.Hemar) Walc ang. z rewii “Zjazd Centrośmiechu” teatru Qui pro Quo (English waltz from theatre Qui pro Quo revue “The Convention of Center-Laugh Party”), Syrena-Electro (Polish) 1930
NOTE: Maria MODZELEWSKA – Polish actress and singer, b. 1903 in Sosnowiec, Poland – d. 1997 in Warsaw. One of the most outstanding pre-war theater actresses. After graduating from Cracow's Higher School for Women in 1920, she performed at the Bagatelle Theater, where her artful performance was rewieved enthusiastically as “an indefinite something, full of the secrets of a smile, a glance of a glance, or an unexpected tempo of temperament, away from the directed work of a skilful art. Witchcraft! . She worked at the Juliusz Słowacki Theater in Cracow, and in 1924 she was noticed by Arnold Szyfman – an influential director of one of the leading Polish scenes: Teatr Polski in Warsaw. In Warsaw, she performed also in other distinguished theaters – Narodowy, Letni, Ateneum, becoming one of the most loved and most valued Polish actresses. She was not reluctant to perform in the movies or on the small stages, including cabarets Banda or Qui pro Quo. Her songs: Pennsylvania, I Chciałabym a Boję Się (I would like, and I'm afraid), Wspomnij mnie (Remember me) - all the Warsaw sang.
She was the great love and wife of the poet and cabaret author Marian Hemar, who adapted for her many musical comedies, using her vocal abilities. After the outbreak of war in September 1939 Modzelewska left her husband, Warsaw, Poland and accompanied by her lover, Stanislaw Carso-Siedlecki, Secretary of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Beck – she run away from the bombed city to Krzemieniec in the Polish Ukraine and from there to Romania, France, England to the United States. She worked physically in a chicken farm and as a typist in the Polish Week broadcast in New York, until she got employment in the administration in the radio Voice of America. She was writing stories and poems, she sang songs, read poetry and talked on air about the past times. She also wrote for the Polish émigré press: the London-News, Soldier's Daily and The White Eagle. She organized Polish theater performances and concerts in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. She was an active member of the Polish émigré Artists' Union, helping many actors who had not been successful in continuing their career abroad. She remained unmarried and her name was banned in the communist Poland in revenge for her anti-communist activity. She returned to Poland in 1995 in the age of 92 to stay until her death two yars later, in the Actor's Home in Skolimów. She was buried in Warsaw's Stare Powązki cemetery.
Polish Tango Wspomnij mnie (Remember Me) - Marja Modzelewska, 1929
Maria Modzelewska – Wspomnij mnie [Remember Me...] (A.Ripp / Marian Hemar) Tango z „Artystów” w Teatrze Polskim (from the show „Artyści” in Teatr Polski, Warsaw), Syrena-Electro 1929 (Polish)
NOTE: This tango-chanson is the Polish version of Italian tango “Creola”, which in the turn of 1920/30s acquired international notoriety. (See it’s beautiful version by Italian singer Daniele Serra ) Here, it is sung by Maria Modzelewska, actress of Theatre Polski in Warsaw, who sung it in the 1929 show “Artyści” (The Artists) with admirable lyrics written by Polish poet, Marian Hemar. Modzelewska was born in 1903 in Sosnowiec in Upper Silesia, and early in her life she tied her artistic career with the nearby city of Cracow. In early 1920s she performed in theatres Bagatela and Słowacki in Cracow, where in 1924 she was noticed by influential poet and columnist from Warsaw Jan Lechoń, who recommended her to Arnold Szyfman – director of Teatr Polski in Warsaw. Having seen Modzelewska on stage, Szyfman immediately offered her engagement in his theatre and thereafter she started her great career as one of the most valued and most loved by the audience actresses of the capital city stages. Her scenic temperament and youthful appearance enabled her not only to successfully perform in serious dramatic repertoire, but also in melodramatic silent movies as well as on smaller stages of Warsaw literary cabarets. In 1929 she acted as Bonny in the now forgotten American jazz-age comedy „The Artists” (original name: Broadway) by George Watters & Arthur Hopkins - which in Feb 1929 was a great success in Vienna. Polish version included several popular international hits of the day with lyrics written by Marian Hemar. (One of those hits was tango “Wspomnij mnie”). This cooperation brought both of them in a romance, which turned into Marian Hemar’s mad love followed by perhaps noisest matrimonial affair in the artistic world of Warsaw of the 1930s. Married to Marian Hemar in 1936 – after divorcing two earlier husbands – Maria Modzelewska quickly grew tired of his obsessive admiration and suspiciousness, to which, alas, he did not lack reasons. Shortly before outbreak of the 2nd World War, and still being Hemar’s wife, Modzelewska got engaged into a romance with Stanisław Siedlecki – secretary in Polish Foreign Affairs Office, with whom, and abandoning Hemar, she fled from Poland to Romania and farther on to the United States, during the first weeks of German invasion on Poland in Sept 1939. In New York, Maria Modzelewska was still active and performed for the Polish audiences in USA and in London, she also worked for the Voice of America broadcast. However, her acting career was in decline, for declaiming mostly the stereotype patriotic repertoire, which was the greatest demand among Polish war veterans in exile, she left unused a majority of her artistic possibilities. In 1994 she came back to Poland, where she died in 1997 as the boarder of Retired Artists’ Nursing Home in Skolimów near Warsaw. This ravishing song was again recorded in 1958 by Sława Przybylska - a fabulous Polish singer of a younger generation
In the photoshow are presented the rare heliogravures of Warsaw from 1920s - when Polish capital city was still undestroyed by the Germans, during the 2nd World War.
Polish Version of Baby, Oh Where Can You Be? - Jesień (Autumn) by Maria Modzelewska, 1930
Maria Modzelewska & Orkiestra Parlophon dir. by Iwo Wesby -- Jesień (Autumn) (Polish version of: Baby, Oh Where Can You Be), Parlophon 1930 (Poland)
NOTE: In Warsaw in the beginning of Autumn season of 1930, cabaret Qui Pro Quo -- with a refined sense of humour typical for its authors - gave for their opening revue a title Zjazd Centro-śmiechu (Congress of Centro-Laugh Party) - ironically twisting the name of Congress of Centro-Left Party (Zjazd Centro-Lewu) which was held in the same time. One of this revue's best numbers was a ballet scene Autumn inspired by Rudy Vallee's great hit Baby Oh Where Can You Be and performed by dancer Leo Fuks with Tacjan-Girls chorus line. Maria Modzelewska -- who was one of the brightest stars of Warsaw theatres - recorded it with a beautiful, melancholic lyrics written by Marian Hemar - a Qui Pro Quo author and also one of the finest Polish poets of the era.
Maria MODZELEWSKA (b. 1901 in Sosnowiec, Poland -- d. 1997, Warsaw) -- Polish theatre and cabaret actress, singer. In age of 19 she debuted in Cracow in a vadeuville theatre Bagatela, to continue in more serious repertoire in Teatr Słowackiego. Seen on stage by the famous theatre director Arnold Szyfman, she was engaged to Teatr Polski in Warsaw, where in 1924 she started her great career. Until the outbreak of WW2 she continuously acted in the serious drama as well as in music comedies, vadeuville, even revues in cabarets Qui Pro Quo and Banda. She did not reject offers from the silent movie and later --sound cinema producers: her roles in motion picture hits Przedwiośnie (Early Spring, 1928), Serce na ulicy' (Heart On A Pavement, 1931) or Śluby ułańskie (The Uhlans' Vows) earned her enormous popularity. Her small yet very expressive voice opened her way to numerous recordings for Columbia, Odeon, Syrena-Electro or Parlophon, where she recorded mostly the international hits with beautiful Polish lyrics adapted to her genre by her husband Marian Hemar (Polish versions of an American waltz Pennsylvania as well as Italian tango Creola [Wspomnij mnie ] or another American hit Happy Days Are Here Again [Chciałabym a boję się ).
Her life so very successful on stage, did not give her taste of happiness in private. Her marriage with Hemar was a disaster. After a period of mariage simulé they lived two almost separate lives. However in September 1939, in first days of WW2 they left Warsaw together on Hemar's car and taking with them from the road actress Lena Żelichowska, they went to Romania, where their avenues split forever. He went on to Turkey, Palestine and via Egypt, where he joined the Polish Emigree Amy he followed the quest of a Polish soldier struggling on Western fronts with the Germans, while she travelled to New York and started nullity suit of their matrimonium. She also continued career as an important member of Polish Emigree Actors Trouppe travelling together with Jadwiga Smosarska, Zofia Nakoneczna and others from coast to coast with numerous performances for small Polish audiences. Through 1950s and 1960s she continued activity as an actress as well as activist for the sake of disabled emigree Polish actors. In 1989, after fall of communism she returned to Poland, where she lived and died in the Actors House in Skolimów near Warsaw.
In years 1927-30 the bandleader Iwo Wesby cionducted the orchestra of Qui Pro Quo in Warsaw. To read his unusual life-story go to
Polish culture during World War II | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
00:01:20 1 Background
00:03:02 2 Destruction of Polish culture
00:03:12 2.1 German occupation
00:03:21 2.1.1 Policy
00:08:29 2.1.2 Plunder
00:10:08 2.1.3 Destruction
00:19:11 2.1.4 Censorship and propaganda
00:23:28 2.2 Soviet occupation
00:29:55 3 Underground culture
00:30:04 3.1 Patrons
00:31:48 3.2 Education
00:36:18 3.3 Print
00:40:38 3.4 Visual arts and music
00:44:36 3.5 Warsaw Uprising
00:45:41 4 Culture in exile
00:46:59 5 Influence on postwar culture
00:49:35 6 See also
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SUMMARY
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Polish culture during World War II was suppressed by the occupying powers of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, both of whom were hostile to Poland's people and cultural heritage. Policies aimed at cultural genocide resulted in the deaths of thousands of scholars and artists, and the theft and destruction of innumerable cultural artifacts. The maltreatment of the Poles was one of many ways in which the Nazi and Soviet regimes had grown to resemble one another, wrote British historian Niall Ferguson.The occupiers looted and destroyed much of Poland's cultural and historical heritage, while persecuting and murdering members of the Polish cultural elite. Most Polish schools were closed, and those that remained open saw their curricula altered significantly.
Nevertheless, underground organizations and individuals – in particular the Polish Underground State – saved much of Poland's most valuable cultural treasures, and worked to salvage as many cultural institutions and artifacts as possible. The Catholic Church and wealthy individuals contributed to the survival of some artists and their works. Despite severe retribution by the Nazis and Soviets, Polish underground cultural activities, including publications, concerts, live theater, education, and academic research, continued throughout the war.