Henryk Baranowski (9 February 1943 – 27 July 2013) was a Polish theatre, opera and film director, actor, stage designer, playwright, screenwriter and poet.[1] He is best known for his starring role in the film Dekalog: One directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski,[2] and also appeared as Rosa's brother Josef in Rosa Luxemburg directed by Margarethe von Trotta[3] and as Napoleon in Pan Tadeusz directed by Andrzej Wajda.[4] He directed over 60 theater and opera productions in Europe, Russia and the US and was the Artistic Director of the Teatr Śląski (Silesian Theatre) in Katowice in the mid 2000s.[5] He also directed four "television theatre" productions: ...yes I will Yes (1992, adapted from Ulysses by James Joyce),[6]For Phaedra (1998),[7]Saint Witch (2003),[8] and Night is the Mother of Day (2004).[9]
Early life
Baranowski’s father Stanisław Baranowski was a well-known conductor and violinist in the Lviv Philharmonic, and his mother Irena (née Filbert) was the daughter of a Tsarist army officer in Kharkiv. They met during the Second World War after the father had been transferred to the Kharkov opera following the Battle of Lwów in 1939. In 1942, the couple attempted to move away from the war torn region to Kraków, but only got as far as Tarnopol. That fall, the father was killed while searching for food by members of the Banderites. Henryk was born in Tarnopol on 9 February 1943, four months after his father's death.[10]
In 1944, the Baranowski family was deported to Germany to work in a labor camp near Bremen, where they remained for the last year of the war. They stayed in the American Zone of Occupation for three years, then moved first to Kliczków in Lower Silesia then to Bolesławiec.
Baranowski studied mathematics at the University of Wrocław and was a graduate of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw (1968) and the Director's Department at the State Theater School in Warsaw (1973).[11]
On the opening night of Totenhorn, Communist Party officials in attendance walked out, and the government shut down the production the next day. A literary conference was taking place nearby, and the writers organized a petition that reversed the decision. Baranowski staged one final production in Poland – Kafka's The Trial at the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw – before leaving the country.[12]
Baranowski emigrated to West Berlin in 1980 and rose to prominence in the city's Freie Theater scene, co-founding the company and theatre school TransformTheater Berlin and the International Directing Seminar[13] at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien[14] with Swiss filmmaker Bettina Wilhelm.[15]
Baranowski's stage adaptations of works by Joyce, Kafka and Dostoyevsky formed the core of TransformTheater Berlin's repertoire. In the early years, he mounted his productions in Berlin, but once the greater openness that followed the founding of Solidarity had been institutionalized, he renewed his work in Poland. Concurrently, he began working in regional theaters in Germany and internationally. His productions were presented at Berlin's Hebbel am Ufer, the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, the Mittelfest in Italy, the European Theatre Festival in Kraków, and numerous other festivals and venues in Poland, Germany, Russia, Italy, Norway and the USA. In the mid-1990s, he moved to a house in Brwinów, a suburb of Warsaw.
Baranowski made his English language debut with George Tabori's Peepshow in Chicago in 1991, which won a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Ensemble. He went on to direct a number of other productions in the US in New York, Las Vegas, and Knoxville, Tennessee. In May 2001, he made his UK directing debut with an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, produced by The Playground at the Riverside Studios in London.
Baranowski's 2009 production of Loneliness on the Net, adapted from the novel by Janusz Leon Wiśniewski, has remained in the repertoire of the 837-seat Main Stage of the Baltic House in Saint Petersburg, Russia through the 2017/18 season, almost a decade after its premiere.[16]
Opera
Later in his career, Baranowski’s attention turned increasing to opera. His production of Philip Glass’ Akhnaten for the Teatr Wielki in Łodzi won a Silver Boat for Best Production and a Golden Mask for Best Director.[17] His staging of Alfred Schnittke's Life with an Idiot in a co-production by the Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre and Hahn Produktion in Berlin won three Russian Golden Mask Awards, including Best Production.[18]
1983 – Termitière Suprème-Anthropomorphosen (site-specific performance in urban plaza, texts by James Joyce) TransformTheater Berlin
1985 – He Who Gets Slapped TransformTheater Berlin at the Renaissance Theater, Berlin [1]
1985 – Japanese Games TransformTheater Berlin at Künstlerhaus Hanover, tour to Oslo, Bergen and Aarhus
1985 – Despoiled Shore. Medeamaterial. Landscape with Argonauts Teatr Studio at the Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw and Theatermanufaktur Berlin
1986 – King David TransformTheater Berlin at za Granicą
1987 – Operetta TransformTheater Berlin at Hebbel am Ufer
1988 – Explosion of a Memory TransformTheater Berlin at Teatr Studio at the Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw and Berlin
1989 – The Trial Freie Volksbuehne, Berlin, tour to za Granicą Festival and the Rassegna Internationale Teatri Stabili, Florence
1989 – Ghost Sonata TransformTheater Berlin at the Oslo International Theater Festival and Bergen International Theater
1990 – Suppressed and Offended Omsk Drama Theatre, Siberia and Theater Der Welt at the Grillo-Theater, Essen[22]
1990 – The Old Woman Broods TransformTheater Berlin (also adaptation and design)
1991 – ...yes I will Yes stage adaptation of Joyce's Ulysses Teatr Szwedzka 2/4, Warsaw (also adaptation and design)
1991 – Peepshow TransformTheater Berlin/Facets Performance Studio at Chopin Theatre, Chicago[23] (also design)
1992 – ...a way alone a last a loved a long the riverrun aka Water Dreams of a Shy Monster: a sensuation on James Joyce aka Bieg rzeki stage adaptation of sections of Ulysses, Exiles, Finnegans Wake and Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom by Brenda Maddox TransformTheater Berlin at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; Polish Cultural Center at Alexanderplatz, Berlin; Sala Sołota / European Theater Festival, Kraków; 'Kontakt' International Theater Festival, Torun; Adam Mickiewicz Theatre, Cieszyn; Theaterhaus Stuttgart; Moscow[24][25] (also adaptation)
1992 – The Castle Teatr Szwedzka 2/4, Warsaw and Cividale Mittelfest (also stage adaptation, stage design and lighting design)
1992 – The Balcony Omsk Drama Theatre
1993 – Ghosts Instytut Teatru Narodowego, Warsaw (also design)
1993 – Die Fledermaus Teatr Wielki im. Stanisława Moniuszki, Poznań (also adaptation and lighting design) tour of the Netherlands
2000 – Akhnaten Teatr Wielki, Łódź[33] (also design)
2001 – Porgy and Bess Teatr Wielki, Łódź
2003 – Life With an Idiot Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre[34][35] and Hahn Produktion[36] Toured to Moscow and Rome and to Munich, Magdeburg, and the Deutsche Oper in Berlin as part of the Russian Culture Days in Germany 2003/4[37]
