The King and the Tsarina

The romance between Poland's last king and Tsarina Catherine the Great was no secret - it was to the Russian empress 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. He caught Catherine's attention and lost his heart to her. Her husband Peter discovered the affair, reacted with anger, but quickly composed himself - he too had extramarital liaisons and blessed the lovers' happiness. In July 1762, he was destined to die at his wife's command, who had him murdered. Two years later, Catherine, now as tsarina, made Poniatowski the ruler of Poland. Thirty-one years on, she stripped him not just of his throne but of his kingdom - leading to the Third Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The creators present a psychological and emotional portrait of former lovers who, under the guise of sibling 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 play of the Polish Classical Theatre reveals the full complexity of the relationship between Stanisław August and Catherine II - a dramatic interweaving of longing, hope, fear, contempt, and cold calculation - and exposes the backstory of events that led to Poland's disappearance from the map of Europe for over a hundred and twenty years.

Duration: 1h 10′

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