Featured in Kraków UNESCO City of Literature: Director Krystian Lada discusses the philosophy behind The Airport Society and why opera must confront difficult truths.
In a revealing interview with theatre critic Tomasz Domagała, published by Kraków UNESCO City of Literature, director and librettist Krystian Lada explores what it means to create opera that is both beautiful and critical—work that refuses to choose between aesthetic power and social relevance.
Lada challenges the false dichotomy that “opera can only be pretty and won’t teach us anything about the world, while critical art can teach us something but can’t be pretty.” His collaboration with composer Katarzyna Głowicka on Unknown, I Live With You proves opera can be both.
Working with texts by Afghan women who risk death for owning a pencil, Lada realized traditional directing wasn’t appropriate. “These are stories that cross the boundaries of our experience of reality,” he explains. Instead, the production documents the performers’ reactions to these testimonies.
When asked if the project empowers Afghan women, Lada clarifies it empowered everyone involved—from soprano Małgorzata Walewska to transgender singer Lucia Lucas to Black singers carrying their own stories of exclusion. Through Afghan women’s courage, the entire cast confronted “the archetypal exclusion of otherness from society.”
What does it mean to exist if you cannot tell your own story? How can art share voice and privilege with those who have been denied both?
Read the full interview on Kraków UNESCO City of Literature →
Interview conducted by Tomasz Domagała for the magazine accompanying the Opera Rara Festival, Krakow, 2020.