World City Guide

Culture

Cracow’s rich intellectual, spiritual and artistic life has received worldwide attention, thanks to its selection as one of the nine European Cities of Culture in 2000. This special year was overseen by the patronage of Cracow’s leading cultural residents: the film and theatre director Andrzej Wajda, the poets Wislawa Szymborska and Czeslaw Milosz, and the composer Krzysztof Penderecki, who won a Grammy Award in 1988. Cracow has long been Poland’s cultural capital but the city’s broad range of culture and the appeal of Cracow’s artistic life have taken off since this year-long arts extravaganza and now more and more events take place all around the city.

Information on cultural events and tickets are available from the Centrum Informacji Kulturalnej (Cultural Information Centre), ulica sw Jana 2 (tel: (012) 421 7787; website: www.animatec.com/karnet). There is a culture information centre in central Cracow at Sukiennice, Rynek Glowny 1/3 (tel: (012) 421 7706; website: www.mcit.pl). The Cultural Information Centre publishes a monthly magazine, Karnet, which has listings in English and Polish.

Music: Cracow’s musical heritage goes back to the liturgical music of the 11th-century Cathedral School. Liszt and Brahms gave concerts in Wawel Castle’s Saxon Room, Szymanowski is buried in Skalka Church and Paderewski made a bequest to the university. The Cracow Academy of Music continues to produce high-calibre musicians. The Cracow Philharmonic Orchestra performs at the Panstwowa Filharmonia im Szymanowskiego (Szymanowski State Philharmonic), ulica Zwierzyniecka 1 (tel: (012) 422 9477). The Capella Cracoviensis choir gives special concerts in the Sukiennice (Cloth Hall) and a number of Cracow’s churches, in addition to their performances at the Philharmonic Hall.

Opera performances take place on Sunday and Monday in the impressive Teatr im Juliusza Slowackiego (Juliusz Slowacki National Slowacki Theatre), plac sw Ducha 1 (tel: (012) 424 4500; website: www.slowacki.krakow.pl), which echoes the Paris Opera. The Cracow Operetta performs at the Scena Opretkowa (Operetta Stage), ulica Lubicz 48 (tel: (012) 421 4200).

The Music in Old Cracow festival and the Tyniec Organ Recitals, in an 11th-century Benedictine abbey in the nearby village of Tyniec, have both been running for over a quarter of a century. Much newer, but rapidly gaining in popularity, is the annual Easter Ludwig van Beethoven Festival, inaugurated as part of the Krakow 2000 festival and featuring works by Beethoven and other composers. The summer Jazz Masters Festival features local and international performers.

Theatre: Cracow has a rich dramatic history – the Aktorzy Teatru Cricot 2, ulica Kanoniczna 5 (tel: (012) 292 9290), was renowned as the place to see the works of avant-garde director Tadeusz Kantor, while the Teatr im. Juliusza Slowackiego or Slowacki Theatre, plac Sw Ducha 1 (tel: (012) 422 4575), was the venue for the premiers of Stanislaw Wyspianski’s plays. Today, both classic and avant-garde works are staged there.

The Teatr Stary im Heleny Modrzejewskiej (Old Theatre) is Cracow’s foremost theatre company and performances are on one of three stages. The main stage is at ulica Jagiellonska 5 (tel: (012) 422 8020 or 422 4040 for bookings). Teatr Ludowy, Osiedle Teatralne 34 (tel: (012) 680 2100), retains its socialist name (The People’s Theatre). It also retains the sparse (for some, plain ugly) interiors of Poland’s Communist past but this is where radical new plays or cutting-edge adaptations of the classics are performed. Tickets may be purchased Tuesday to Saturday 1600-1800 and two hours before the performance.

Dance: In addition to ballet at the Slowacki Theatre, the city is a good place to see performances during the Cracow Ballet Meetings in November.

Film: Film buffs should time their visit to Cracow to coincide with some of the annual festivals, such as the Polish and International Festival of Commercials and Advertisements in March (Poland was the proud winner at Cannes International Advertising Festival in June 2000), the International Short Film Festival and Polish Short Film Festival in May, or the Etiud International Film Festival in November.

Almost all films shown in Cracow’s cinemas are in the original language, with Polish subtitles. Cracow’s screens include ARS, ulica sw Jana 6 (tel: (012) 421 4199; website: www.ars.pl), a very elegant cinema just off the market square, and the Kijow (the biggest cinema in town) behind the Hotel Cracovia, Krasinskiego 34 (tel: (012) 422 3093). There is also a new IMAX, aleja Pokoju 44 (tel: (012) 290 9090; website: www.kinoimax.pl/krakow). Pasaz, Rynek Glowny 9 (in the old commercial passage leading from the corner of Grodzka and the Rynek to ulica Stolarska) shows A-movie features a few weeks or months after their release, and Mikro, ulica Lea 5 (tel: (012) 634 2897) is the place to go for arthouse movies.

Literary Notes: There are two winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature closely associated with Cracow. Firstly, Czeslaw Milosz, the author of The Captive Mind (1953), who died recently (Aug 2004). Secondly, the poet Wislawa Szymborska, whose literary debut began with I Seek the World (1945), published in the supplement Fight (Walka) of Cracow’s daily newspaper, and was followed by the runaway success That’s What we Live For (1952) and many subsequent collections of poetry. The leading Polish science fiction writer and author of Solaris (1961), Stanislaw Lem, studied at Cracow’s Jagiellonian University. Although it is Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List (1993) that has so dramatically raised awareness of Cracow’s former Jewish population, it was Schindler’s Ark (which won the Booker Prize in 1982), by Thomas Kenneally, that first told the story. A good recent history of the city is Zdislaw Zygulski’s Cracow: An Illustrated History (2001).

To learn more about Krakow, visit http://letters.krakow.pl