General and artistic director of the Wrocław Opera. She graduated in music theory, teaching, and conducting from the Academy of Music in Kraków. She also completed a supplementary course with Prof. Hans Swarowsky in Vienna. She was the general and artistic director of the Kraków Opera in 1981-1995, and has been the Wrocław Opera's general and artistic director since 1995. She is also a research worker at the Academy of Music in Kraków, with the title of full professor. Her artistic achievements include over 95 opera premieres as well as symphony concerts, world premieres, television films, CD and radio recordings. With the Wrocław Opera, she has prepared huge opera shows at the Centenary Hall since 1997, staged every year for an audience of several dozen thousand, featuring world opera stars, with gigantic scenery. She is the second woman in the world, and the first in Europe, to conduct Wagner's entire tetralogy.
Winner of the Golden Orpheus Critics' Award at the Warsaw Autumn festival (1992) for the best performance of a contemporary Polish opera, Roman Palester's Śmierć Don Juana (Don Juan's Death). She has received the Wrocław Music Award five times. She is also a recipient of a Fredro Statuette for lifetime achievement and a Lower Silesia Key to Success award for her productions at the Centenary Hall as well as receiving a Prometheus Polish Stage Performers' Award in 2003. In 2008 she received a Golden Fryderyk - the record industry's honorary award for lifetime achievement. In November of the same year, the Polish Music Association granted her a Polish Golden Muse award. She has also received a number of state decorations and a Gloria Artis Gold Medal for her contribution to culture (2005). She is a recipient of the annual Minister of Culture Award in music, and has received a Cross of Merit from the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2009, with the Wrocław Opera company, she received a Guarantee of Culture - an annual award which the TVP Kultura channel grants to the most interesting Polish artists.
Photo: Archive
