An Imaginary Poland in Nineteenth Century Opera

At the very beginning of the nineteenth century, a considerable number of successful Italian operas appeared with a Polish setting: Cherubini’s "Lodoiska" and "Faniska", Mayr’s "Lodoiska", Rossini’s "Torvaldo e Dorliska", Gyrowetz and Verdi’s "Il finto Stanislao" are the most important ones. In operatic imagination, Poland so clearly assumed the role of the exotic landscape that the Middle East had held in Metastasian opera seria, but with a basic difference: they were not more ancient subjects, but plots out of modern history, as the Romantic fashion claimed. Nevertheless not much of the true Polish history can be found in them, as not much of the true Greek or Persian or Mongolian history can be found in eighteenth century opera librettos. Poland had become a new mythical land, to replace the old ones.