Balladyna (drama)

Balladyna is a drama written by Juliusz Słowacki in 1834 in Geneva and published in 1839 in Paris. It is a notable work of Polish romanticism, focusing on the issues such as thirst for power and evolution of the criminal mind. The story revolves around the rise and fall of Balladyna, a fictional Slavic queen. One of the most famous and controversial stagings of Balladyna took place in 1974 at the Grand Theatre in Warsaw. It was directed by Adam Hanuszkiewicz with Anna Chodakowska playing the title role. The story was set as an opera, Goplana, in 1897. Balladyna was performed as tragi-comedy in English for the first time in the United Kingdom in November 2018 by Passing Stranger Theatre Company at Drayton Arms Theatre in Kensington, London and directed by Emma Blacklay-Piech, with a Polish actress Anna Krauze in title role. From May 2024, a fair copy of Balladyna, given by Słowacki to friend Józef Reitenheim in 1834, is presented at a permanent exhibition in the Palace of the Commonwealth.