The King and the Tsarina

The affair between Poland's last king and Tsarina Catherine the Great was no secret - it was to this Russian ruler that Stanisław August owed his throne in Warsaw. The play "The King and the Tsarina", directed by Jerzy Zelnik, is based on a selection of correspondence between the two monarchs.

In 1755, the young Polish aristocrat Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski arrived in St. Petersburg as secretary to the English ambassador and caught Catherine's attention. Her husband Peter discovered the affair - he reacted with anger but quickly composed himself and blessed the lovers, having his own extramarital relations. In July 1762, he died by his wife's order. Two years later, Catherine, now as tsarina, made Poniatowski ruler of Poland - only to strip him not just of his throne but of the entire kingdom thirty-one years later, leading to the Third Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The creators of this play by the Theatre of Polish Classics present a psychological and emotional portrait of former lovers who, under the guise of fraternal relations, wage a diplomatic war over conflicting national interests. Echoes of their former passion occasionally still resonated between the lines of their letters, but the true substance of their correspondence was brutal, unsentimental political calculation. The actors reveal the full complexity of the relationship between Stanisław August and Catherine II - a dramatic interweaving of longing, hope, fear, contempt, and cold calculation.

Duration: 1h 10′

Discounted tickets are available for students, seniors over 60, people with disabilities, and holders of the Large Family Card.