About the work
Legenda Bałtyku (The Legend of the Baltic) is a four-act opera by Polish composer Feliks Nowowiejski to a libretto by Waleria Szalay-Groele. It premiered on 28 November 1924 at the Teatr Wielki in Poznań, drawing on the Romantic Italian and German opera tradition while weaving in Polish folklore and archaic-sounding musical gestures.
Plot
The libretto reworks Slavic legends surrounding the city of Wineta, said to have sunk into the Baltic Sea. The poor fisherman Doman falls in love with Bogna, whose father Mestwin sets him the task of retrieving the ring of the sea queen Jurata from the depths before he may ask for her hand.
Cultural significance
With its patriotic tone the opera struck a chord in the newly independent Poland of the 1920s, receiving some fifty performances in its first season before moving on to Lwów, Katowice and Warsaw. Doman's aria "Czy ty mnie kochasz, o dziewczyno," later popularised by tenor Jan Kiepura, remains the work's best-known excerpt.