Henryk Baranowski

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.

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).

Theatre

Baranowski made his directorial debut in 1973 at the Ateneum Theatre in Warsaw with The Maids by Jean Genet, and went on to direct several productions in theatres in Poland, including Man and Wife by Aleksander Fredro at the Teatr im. W. Bogusławski in Kalisz; Four of Them by Gabriela Zapolska at the Baltic Drama Theatre in Koszalin; Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen and Offending the Audience by Peter Handke at Teatr Polski in Bydgoszcz; Hello and Goodbye by Athol Fugard, The Castle by Franz Kafka, Princess Ivona by Witold Gombrowicz and Forefather's Eve by Adam Mickiewicz at the Theatre Jaracza in Olsztyn; School for Wives by Molière at the Teatr Polski in Poznań; and Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill and Totenhorn by Kazimierz Truchanowski at the Teatr Śląski (Silesian Theatre) in Katowice.

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.

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 at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien with Swiss filmmaker Bettina Wilhelm.

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.

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. 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.

Theatre productions (director)

Theatre productions:

1971 – The Maids Teatr Ateneum im. S. Jaracza, Warsaw

1971 – School of Wives Teatr Polski, Poznań

1971 – The Other Room Teatr w Opolu

1972 – Poison, Love, Singing (after Carlo Goldoni's The Two Venetian Twins) Teatr im. W. Bogusławskiego, Kalisz (also libretto)

1973 – Ghosts Teatr Polski, Bydgoszcz and Teatr im. Wojciecha Bogusławskiego, Kalisz (also adaptation)

1974 – La Dame aux Camélias Bałtycki Teatr Dramatyczny im. Juliusza Słowackiego, Koszalin-Słupsk (also stage adaptation)

1974 – Twins Today(after Carlo Goldoni's The Two Venetian Twins) Bałtycki Teatr Dramatyczny im. Juliusza Słowackiego w Koszalinie

1975 – Four of Them Bałtycki Teatr Dramatyczny im. Juliusza Słowackiego w Koszalin-Słupsk

1975 – The Maids Teatr Polski, Bydgoszcz

1975 – Offending the Audience Teatr Polski, Bydgoszcz

1975 – Life Lines stage adaptation of African poetry Estrada, Szczecin

1975 – The Castle Teatr im. S. Jaracza, Olsztyn-Elbląg

1976 – Hello and Goodbye Teatr im. Stefana Jaracza, Olsztyn-Elbląg

1976 – Princess Ivona Teatr im. Stefana Jaracza, Olsztyn-Elbląg

Opera productions

Opera productions:

1993 – Die Fledermaus Teatr Wielki im. Stanisława Moniuszki, Poznań (also adaptation and lighting design) tour of the Netherlands

2000 – Akhnaten Teatr Wielki, Łódź (also design)

2001 – Porgy and Bess Teatr Wielki, Łódź

2003 – Life With an Idiot Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre and Hahn Produktion 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

2004 – Rigoletto Opera Krakowska

2006 – Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre

2007 – The Barber of Seville Teatr Wielki, Łódź (also adaptation, design)

2012 – The Elixir of Love Opera Krakowska (also design)

Television productions

Television productions:

1992 – ...yes I will Yes (also wrote screenplay)

1998 – For Phaedra

2003 – Saint Witch

2004 – Night is the Mother of Day

Selected filmography

Films:

Wszystko (1972, dir. Piotr Szulkin)

Rosa Luxemburg Josef, Rosa's brother (1986, dir. Margarethe von Trotta)

Dekalog Krzysztof (1988, dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Dekalog: One

Dekalog: Three

Pan Tadeusz Napoleon Bonaparte (1999, dir. Andrzej Wajda)

Radio productions

Radio productions for Teatr Polskiego Radia:

2011 – Dziewanna by Jacek Dobrowolski

2012 – A Dream About King David by Helmut Kajzar

2012 – Tułacze (after Exiles by James Joyce)

2012 – When We Dead Awaken by Henrik Ibsen

Awards

1976 – First prize for Hello and Goodbye at the Festival of Small-Theatre-Forms "KONTRAPUNKT" in Szczecin

1976 – First prize for adaptation and direction for The Castle at the XVIII Festival of North Polish Theatres in Toruń

1991 – ITI Award for Promotion of Polish Theatre Culture Abroad

1992 – Award from the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Outstanding Merit in the Promotion of Polish Culture and Art Abroad

1992 – Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Ensemble for Peepshow, TransformTheater Berlin/Facets Performance Studio

2000 – Golden Mask for Best Director and Silver Boat for best production for Akhnaten, Teatr Wielki, Łódź

2004 – Golden Mask for Best Opera Production for Life with An Idiot, Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre