Word: mickiewicz
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...protests were originally ignited by the government's closing of Dziady, an anti-Czarist drama by Adam Mickiewicz (TIME, March 8), but they soon broadened into general dissatisfaction with Gomulka's Soviet-style rule. Spreading from Warsaw, unrest and demonstrations broke out in eight other cities. Students who had started by chanting "Dziady!" were soon crying "Gestapo!" at police and cheering the generalized thaw in Czechoslovakia...
Though Dziady, written by Poet Adam Mickiewicz in 1832, has long been a staple of study in nearly every Polish high school, its appearance on the Warsaw stage a few weeks ago caused an uproar. When audiences laughed too loudly at the anti-Russian lines, the government's censors closed down the whole production. In recent weeks they have also closed two other plays and kept from circulation the most promising Polish movie of the year, a surrealistic comedy on politics called Hands Up. Also kept from circulation was Critic Janusz Szpotanski, 34, author of a musical satire...
Under the exuberant direction of Denis Mickiewicz the group sang as one like a great human organ with vocal chords in place of pipes. Their repertoire is small but polished. Everything is done from memory and it was obvious from the performance that the chorus knows each selection inside...
SUCH mastery of material allows the conductor a great deal of flexibility, and Mickiewicz capitalized fully on the chance. His conducting was demonstrative, fluid, and expressive, moving in phrases instead of measures. His lines were lovingly shaped, sometimes elegantly, sometimes extravagantly. Mickiewicz is a master of that peculiarly Slavic kind of rubato whose sentiment hovers between joy and sorrow and has a gradual rocket accelerando that makes the Rossini crescendo dull by comparison...
Although I have heard them sing better, the Chorus sounded very good Friday night. Assistant Conductor Dan Gsovsky (who conducted the entire program due to Mr. Mickiewicz's illness) seemed at times to be pulling the music out of them. They responded superbly, singing with much power and involvement, and covering a range of emotions from deep melancholy to fierce patriotism. Songs of the steppes, the Volga, and the Battle of Borodino were for them as charged with emotion as they are for most Russians. The audience was infected with their spirit, and literally stomped them back on stage...