The 2008/09 opera season saw unprecedented successes of Polish opera singers, with five having appeared in leading parts at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

According to Jacek  Marczynski, the critic for the daily Rzeczpospolita, tenor Piotr Beczala deserves honour and is described by the Met Director Peter Gelb as ‘the world’s finest lyric tenor of our time.’ Beczala’s roles at the Met included  Edgardo in Donizetti’s Lucia of Lammermoor as well as the leads in Verdi’s Rigoletto and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. In the forthcoming season, Beczala is billed in Vienna, London, Zurich, Chicago and New York.

Number Two in the Rzeczpospolita ranking is the baritone Mariusz Kwiecien, who, alongside his success in Lucia of Lammermoor at the Met, won rave reviews for the title role in Szymanowski’s King Roger in Paris a few weeks ago.

The renowned contralto Ewa Podles has returned to the Metropolitan Opera after a lapse of 24 years as La Cieca in Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. During the forthcoming season Podles will appear in Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Bilbao and San Francisco in operas by Tchaikovsky, Verdi and Puccini.

The soprano Aleksandra Kurzak won applause as Gilda in Rigoletto in New York and had several successful appearances at London’s Royal Opera in Covent Garden.

The baritone Andrzej Dobber sang Giorgio Germont in La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera and currently sings the part of Kurwenal in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the 2009 Glyndebourne Festival in Southern England. (mk/mmj)