Over the last couple of years, more and more
Polish names have appeared on the Seattle
music scene. This may be especially visible
in the next season when three opera
superstars will be singing here: Ewa Podleś
(contralto), Malgorzata Walewska
(mezzo-soprano) and Mariusz Kwiecień
(baritone). Ewa Podleś and Mariusz Kwiecień
will come back to Seattle in the glory of
their previous successes; Małgorzata
Walewska will make her debut as Judith in
Bela Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle (the
Polish Studies Endowment Committee already
invites you to her performance and a
reception on February 28 and March 1, 2009).
But let us return to the present season of
2007/2008, a highlight of which has been the
performance of Mariusz Kwiecień in Bellini’s
I Puritani. An extremely talented
and popular artist, he was unable to leave
McCaw Hall with the other singers due to the
number fans still waiting at the doors of
his dressing room. Fortunately for his
admirers, Mr.Kwiecień accepted an invitation
to the fundraising event organized by the
Polish Studies Endowment Committee. On May
10 nearly 50 supporters of the Polish
Studies Endowment attended a production of
I Puritani at
Seattle Opera and then met the artist at a
private reception the following day. Still
amazed by Mariusz Kwiecień’s opera
performance, they have now been captivated
by his youthful and engaging personality.
Mariusz
Kwiecień (center) with supporters of the
Polish Studies Endowment at the fundraising
event
Ewa Poraj-Kuczewska
Considering all your successes and leading
roles at the grand opera houses, to what do
we owe our luck of seeing you again in
Seattle?
Mariusz Kwiecień
First of all - when I came here some years
ago, I was at once enchanted with the young,
polished, culturally dynamic city. Then -
Speight Jenkins, a man with an authentic
passion for the opera, a man who gave all
his heart, all his life and probably all his
money to the opera, who has created and
directed a fantastic opera house for the
last 25 years. And one more thing which
brought me back was the warm welcome that I
received from the Polish and American
audiences. It is also the reason why my hand
does not quiver when I sign contracts with
Seattle Opera.
EPK
You have been awarded the title of Seattle
Opera’s Artist of the Year for your
performance of Don Giovanni, which seems to
have been one of your favorites for years...
MKDon Giovanni is such a great
experience – I have a feeling that Mozart
composed this music somehow with me in
mind. I simply adore this music, love to
sing this piece by Mozart and hope I am not
too bad in it since I have been received
recognition for this role. I tell you
something else – I am not like Don Giovanni
in real life. Maybe being a person
completely different from this scenic
character makes it so appealing to me – I
can enact something which will never ever
happen in my personal life.
EPK
In the next year we will see Małgorzata
Walewska in Seattle. Have you had a chance
to work with her?
MK
Yes, of course, we are also very close
friends. Not long ago I invited Małgosia to
Kraków, and together we did a program called
Spotkanie z Artystą at Słowacki
Theatre. In this program we sang, danced,
told stores and goofed around.
It was a lot of fun.
When Małgosia arrives I hope you will be
able to invite and interview her – I pale in
comparison with her. Małgorzata Walewska is
such an amazing talent in so many areas: she
is an extraordinary artist, great comic, and
a great conversationalist, not to mention
her singing – but the singing you can get
from her recordings – she is a wonderful
human being with a huge heart, so please
take this rare opportunity to appreciate the
wonder that she is.
EPK
You are not only a singer but also a
painter, poet, photographer, you are
designing furniture, and so on, and so on…
MK
I think that everyone gets several talents
in his life. For example, as a singer I can
also draw something, dance or write, and
somehow it flows together. An artist is
someone who is brave, not afraid to present
himself, so you do not fear to draw a line
with a pencil or – even if you have never
sung – come out and sing in public. An
artist has a predisposition, desire and
calling to manifest himself to the world.
EPK
You are only 35 years old and as an artist
you have already accomplished so much. Do
you lack for anything?
MK
No, I really do not... I indeed have
achieved more than I have ever dreamed of.
I knew that my career would develop but did
not expect it to gather such momentum.
Today I only want to continue getting those
fantastic contracts and keep playing
interesting opera roles.
EPK
In the coming season you will geta
new role…
MK
I will play King Roger in Karol
Szymanowski’s opera which will be staged in
Paris (Opera
national de Paris,
June 18 – July 2, 2009)
by a famous Polish director Krzysztof
Warlikowski. It is my first Król Roger
– we will see how it works. No rehearsals
yet but it is already truly exciting that I
will be performing in a Polish opera abroad.
I know that a lot of people love Halka
and Straszny dwór, but in my opinion
only Król Roger deserves a world
premiere.
EPK
I wish you good luck in this production, as
well as your other performances. See you
next year, since you are coming back to
Seattle, am I correct?
MK
Yes, in May I will return as Count Almaviva
in The Marriage of Figaro – I will be
looking forward to meeting the same fabulous
Polish audience.
EPK
We will be here, I promise
Mariusz Kwiecień in The
Marriage of Figaro at the Metropolitan
Opera
¨
UW PSEC: Five Years of History
in the Making
an editorial
by Kat Dziwirek,
Associate Professor, Slavic Department
University of Washington,
commemorating five years of activity of Polish
Studies Endowment Committee.
Please help us spread the word among UW students and non-students,
encouraging them to enroll in the classes
listed below in order to show the
University that Polish culture and language courses are needed and
in demand in our community.
If you are sixty years of age or older, you can attend UW
classes for only $5.00 by signing up through
ACCESS. If you aren’t currently
a UW student and are less than sixty years of age, you may enroll as
a
UW EXTENSION student.
Adam Michnik at the UW
We are very
pleased
to announce that Adam Michnik,
his health permitting, intends to visit the University of
Washington this spring, April 30-May
4. Mr. Michnik, former
dissident, historian, essayist and one of Europe’s leading
journalists, has been Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza,
Poland’s first independent daily newspaper, since its
inception in 1989. A life-long activist for human rights,
he spent a total of six years in prison between 1965 and
1986 for his opposition to the communist regime. As a
longtime advisor to Solidarity, Mr. Michnik participated in
the Roundtable negotiations that ended communist
rule in Poland and was subsequently elected to Poland’s
first non-communist parliament in 1989. In recognition of
his untiring work on behalf of democracy and journalistic
freedom, he has been the recipient of numerous awards
including the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 1986,
the OSCE Prize for Journalism and Democracy in 1996 and,
most recently in 2006, the Dan David Prize for being the
journalist most associated with the collapse of the Soviet
bloc and the rise of freedom in Eastern Europe. He is
scheduled to deliver a public lecture,
“Revolution's Aftermath: Twenty Years of Polish Democracy” ,
in the UW PESC
Distinguished Speakers Series on April 30, 7pm, Kane Hall
220. This event will be co-sponsored by numerous UW
departments including the Ellison Center for Russian, East
European and Central Asian Studies and the European Union
Center of Excellence.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Reception in Honor of Adam Michnik
7:30PM
at a private residence in Broadmoor
Donation: $75 Reservations required.
Contact: Martha Golubiec at
mgolubiec@comcast.net or call 206.935.7535 by
April 28, 2008
you are visiting
www.PolishStudiesUW.org,
the website of Polish Studies at the University of
Washington Endowment Committee
“Polish Prince…His voice,
for one: burnished and rich, with robust carrying power and
a ringing high A many a tenor would covet. His good looks,
trim physique and agility are also givens…” (The
New York Times, March 2, 2008)
A Night
at the Opera and Up Close & Personal with Extraordinary
Mariusz Kwiecień
"A baritone who
commands the stage so completely that he seems to suck up
all the oxygen," said the Seattle Times about Mariusz
Kwiecień. He brought crowds to their feet with his
performance at Seattle Opera’s production of Don Giovanni
which earned him the 2006/2007 Seattle Opera’s Artist
of the Year award. Not surprisingly, since then he has
truly distinguished himself as Don Giovanni, a role he has
sung in Vienna, Bilbao, Houston, San Francisco, Santa Fe,
Warsaw, and Tokyo.
Polish baritone Mariusz
Kwiecień, a riveting new superstar in the making, has
captured the attention of opera fans far and wide for his
striking voice, incisive musicianship, and dynamic stage
presence. He appears frequently at the Metropolitan Opera,
where he has sung in
La Bohčme,
I Pagliacci,
and DonPasquale.
Under the baton of James Levine, he has been Almaviva in
Le Nozze di Figaro
and Guglielmo in Cosě Fan Tutte. Mariusz
Kwiecień opened the 2007/2008 season with a
Met’s new production of
Lucia di Lammermoor. He
was also Garment in La Traviata in
London Covent Garden. In Chicago he sings the title role in
Eugene Onegin
then will return to Seattle for his performance as Riccardo
in I Puritani. He
ends his season at the Santa Fe Opera in the role of Count
Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro.
This is a sample of his recent schedule, and he has been
booked for years to come.
The UW Polish Studies Endowment Committee invites you to a
new production of I Puritani at Seattle Opera on May
10, 2008. A cocktail party at a private residence the
following day will provide a rare opportunity to meet
Mariusz Kwiecień in person. Your
$100 donation will include an opera ticket and the reception
with Mr. Kwiecień. To make reservations please contact Ewa
Poraj-Kuczewska at
EKuczewska@PolishStudiesUW.org or
call 206.362.3829 by April 20,
2008.
We promise you as much fun as you had a year ago
meeting Ewa Podleś, another Polish Seattle Opera Artist
of the Year. Hope to see you at the event.
Ewa Poraj-Kuczewska
you are visiting
www.PolishStudiesUW.org,
the website of Polish Studies at the University of
Washington Endowment Committee
It is with
great excitement that the University of Washington Department of
Slavic Languages and Literatures is announcing the launch of the
annual UW Polish Studies Scholarshipsfor the UW
students interested in studies in Poland between June 2008 and May
2009. The scholarships are offered by the UW Polish Studies
Endowment Committee and were made possible by the generosity of
supporters and friends of the UW Polish Studies.
Priority will be given to
students traveling to Poland to study the Polish language, but
support may be also provided to students who would like to pursue
other aspects of Polish studies.
Awards of up to $1500
will be offered toward airfare, lodging and/or tuition for students
enrolled in an accredited program in Poland.
To apply
submit the following required materials:
1.a 2-page essay, in which you
explain your intended academic plans and how these funds will assist
you (double-spaced, 12 font (Courier, Arial or Times New Roman),
with 1-inch margins on all sides;
2.a budget outlining your expenses;
3.one faculty letter of support;
4.an unofficial copy of your
transcript.
Applications are due March 2, 2008. A decision will be made by
April 6, 2008.
Please send
application materials to:
Shosh Westen
Slavic
Department, Box 353580
University of
Washington
Seattle, WA
98195-3580
you are visiting
www.PolishStudiesUW.org,
the website of Polish Studies at the University of
Washington Endowment Committee
It is truly
amazing to behold creation, to see something arise out of nothing
thanks to the good will and generosity of a community. It is hard to
believe that five years ago the UW Polish Studies Endowment
Committee (UW PSEC) did not exist and it is amazing to contemplate
how much we have accomplished since 2002.
April 2002 saw our first outreach
event at the University of Washington: Tom Podl’s presentation on
“Colors of Identity: Discovering Polish Heritage through Art”. The
same year we received two sizable grants from Simpson Center for the
Humanities and from Arts and Sciences Exchange Program to organize,
during the next two academic years, an outreach speaker series
entitled “50 Years of Polish at the UW: Celebrating Polish-American
Heritage”. The series was also supported by smaller grants from the
Polish Home Association, Polish Home Ladies’ Auxiliary, University
of Washington Slavic, History and Jewish Studies Departments, the
REECAS Program, and the Seattle Public Library. In 2004 a very
generous gift from Izabella and Andrzej Turski enabled us to
continue the series, now known as Distinguished
Speakers Series, for the next three following yearsand beyond:Leszek Balcerowicz is scheduled to inaugurate
the 2007/08 Series with a lecture next October. One look at the
impressive list of events organized by the UW PSEC gives an
appreciation of our organization’s vitality and achievements over
these past five years (see below).
In addition to the Speakers’ Series, we have held three UW Polish
Studies Auctions, which raised over $120,000. In June 2005, we
created the UW Polish Studies Endowment Fund with an initial
deposit of $35,000 which this year reached $120,000. We developed
a unique University of Washington Fulbright LectureshipGrant, which combines funds from the US-Polish Fulbright
Commission, the UW’s Ellison Center, and UW PSEC to bring a lecturer
in Polish Studies to the university for three years, beginning in
2006/2007. We also established UW Polish Studies Scholarship
Fund, which in 2007/08 will be awarded to UW students traveling
to Poland to pursue their studies.
The Polish Studies Endowment Fund
with $120,000, twenty three Distinguished Polish Speakers’ Series
events, the Fulbright Lectureship, the Scholarship Fund: none of
these existed 5 years ago. And neither did UW PSEC itself, a grass
roots organization of volunteers, whose generosity and dedication to
the twin goals of fundraising for an Endowed Chair of Polish studies
and educating the Seattle community about Poland are truly
awe-inspiring.
New Page 4
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www.PolishStudiesUW.org, the website of Polish Studies at the
University of Washington Endowment Committee
Leszek Balcerowicz in Seattle By Dr. Arista Cirtautas, Visiting Lecturer at the UW Jackson School of
International Studies
That Professor Leszek Balcerowicz is still very much a man with a mission
was clearly in evidence during his lecture on “Post-Communist Transformation
in Central Europe,” and his meeting with students at the University of
Washington, Nov. 1-2, 2007. While his mission was once to transform the
“destructive system of communism” into a well-functioning “Western system of
capitalism,” a revolutionary transformation that he carried out most ably as
Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and as President of the Polish
National Bank, his current goal is to ensure the continuity and
sustainability of sound market-building economic policies against the
vagaries of intemperate and short-sighted political decision-making. As he
noted in the question and answer session following his lecture, the most
difficult challenge now and in the future is to navigate the “period of
normal politics”
Foto:Commitee
members with Professor and Mrs. Balcerowicz at
the reception hosted by Shoshanna and Roman
Budzianowski. First row from left to right:
K. Untersteiner, M. Grabowska, E.
Poraj-Kuczewska,
J. Budzianowski, E. Balcerowicz, K. Dziwirek and A. Burdzy
Second row from left to right: Z. Konofalski, B. McNair,
M. Golubiec, W.Cieslar-Pawluskiewicz, L. Balcerowicz,
R. Budzanowski and K. BurdzyNew Page 3
when economic policies are all too easily politicized and
distorted by non-market-building objectives. Difficult as the initial reform
period might have been, the stabilization, liberalization and privatization
policies introduced then under his leadership took place under a “period of
extraordinary politics,” an admittedly short but vital grace period when a
permissive consensus on the part of both elites and publics enabled radical
reform. After political life routinizes and returns to ‘normal,’ the biggest
question is, as Professor Balcerowicz elaborated at the student meeting,
“how can good policies be maintained through regime change and beyond as in
the case of Chile?”
In addressing this new challenge or mission, two key strategies can be
delineated following Professor Balcerowicz’s remarks, one more defensive in
character, the other more offensive or proactive. On the defensive side, it
is important to promote, protect and preserve an appraisal of the recent
past that does justice to what was overcome and what has been achieved since
1989 in order to offset the negative, politically mobilizing effects of
unnecessarily critical or uninformed assessments of his reforms.
Accordingly, Professor Balcerowicz reminded his lecture audience of the
destructive nature of the communist system, how it might have provided some
sort of security but at a very low level of economic development with no
rule of law and an unprecedented “scope of control over individual freedom.”
Both “Western illusions” regarding welfare under socialist regimes and east
European “myths” regarding the responsibility of the state to provide for
“free lunches” need to be dispelled by a return to the objective facts of
communist development, specifically that, during the communist era, the
developmental gap between eastern and southern Europe grew enormously
leaving post-communist countries with that much more “backwardness” to
overcome. Consequently, an “extremely broad transformation” was needed to
move from communism to capitalism; a transformation that “did not neglect
institutional change as some observers claim” (especially since
“privatization is institutional change) and that did have to take a “radical
approach on a broad front with maximum possible speed but at different rates
depending on issue areas, e.g. stabilization or liberalization.” This, and
not “shock therapy”, a term Professor Balcerowicz dislikes due to its
association with electrical shocks, is a more realistic portrayal of his
reform package. Furthermore, due consideration has to be given to the
positive outcomes produced by these reforms such as increased life
expectancy, declining infant mortality rates, a marked reduction in
industrial waste and, correspondingly, a reduction in the negative
environmental impact associated with communist economic development, and,
most importantly perhaps, the enhanced scope of individual freedom as in
both “market and non-market transactions, people establish their own
relationships.” Inevitably, more needs to be done to ensure continuing rates
of economic growth, government spending needs to be controlled,
privatization needs to be completed, unnecessary bureaucratic regulations
need to be removed and the judiciary, especially the prosecutors, need to be
more efficient and impartial. Most importantly, overcoming the continuing
effects of economic backwardness such as high levels of emigration
(producing a potential “brain drain”) and the disparity between high west
European price levels and much lower east European wage levels, are
completely dependent on a sustained rate of growth which, in turn, is
dependent on the continuity of good economic policies.
But how can such policies be preserved in the face of growing political
populism and the general unpopularity of the market economy? As Professor
Balcerowicz himself noted in answer to a question after his lecture, this
lack of popularity can be ascribed to a potent combination of socioeconomic
interests (as those with a privileged status under communism like miners
exchange places with those who held a much lower status under the previous
regime like educated people), myths (such as the myth of the “free lunch”
and “brotherhood”) and morality (as in the assumption that the “profit
motive is bad”). Here, a more offensive, proactive strategy is needed to
promote good communication (e.g., “good slogans” to undermine populist
appeals) between market oriented elites and the general public. In his
meeting with students, Professor Balcerowicz informed us that, precisely in
order to foster good political communication in Poland, he has founded a new
NGO, (with the acronym “FOR” – “we are for and not against,” he emphasized),
which has the following goals: identify the most popular populist beliefs,
use psychology and marketing to challenge and overcome these beliefs (for
example, through the use of satire and sharp, pointed humor). Most recently,
FOR initiated a “get out the vote” campaign, primarily addressed at the
younger generation using text-messaging and the internet, which doubtlessly
contributed to the 15% increase in electoral turnout in the parliamentary
elections and the electoral victory of the Civic Platform, a party much more
favorable toward sound economic policies than their opponents.
Basically, it appears as if this new Balcerowicz mission is designed to
foster, by conscious design, the very factors that initially combined
spontaneously to support market reforms in Central Europe and the Baltics.
Since these factors, reform linkages, quality of leadership and the
politicization of social dissatisfaction (as Professor Balcerowicz pointed
out in his lecture, it is “bad reasoning” to conclude that because there is
social dissatisfaction, the reforms –his reforms—must be wrong), played
such an important role, according to Professor Balcerowicz, in “determining
the difference in the rate and success of reforms in the former Soviet
bloc,” they might well be of equal importance in determining when and where
good economic policies persist beyond regime transition. Hence, the new
mission is to promote “positive reform linkages” whereby market reform or
continued good economic policies are linked to positive, highly desirable
non-economic objectives, to promote, via the electoral process, a qualified,
pro-market leadership and to undermine the populist effort to connect social
dissatisfaction to pro-market policies. Given the drive, determination and
focus Professor Balcerowicz brings to his work, he is likely to be as
successful in these endeavors as in his past undertakings.
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