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Lucyna Szczepańska - Cicha Noc (Silent Night) 1949

3,413 views · Published 24 December 2015 · 3:19 · Indexed 26 October 2026

Channel: 240252 · 2015 · Music

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Cicha noc (Silent Night) Kolęda (Christmas Carol) - Lucyna SZCZEPAŃSKA, sopran & J. Kropiwnicki (piano), Polonia (Polish recording; made in UK) c. 1949/1950 

NOTE: Lucyna Szczepańska (b.1909 in Warsaw – d. 1999 in Milanówek near Warsaw) was one of the most beloved voices in prewar Poland.  Early in her teens self-taught music reading and soprano singing, she joined the choir of Teatr Wielki (The Grand Theatre) in NWarsaw, where she was professionally educated by Professor Kryńska (the teacher of Ewa Bandrowska-Turska - one of the greatest Polish sopranos of the 20th Century).  Privately auditioned by director of the Grand Theatre Emil Młynarski, Lucyna Szczepańska immediately received permanent engagement at that major Polish operatic stage. Her brilliant career in the decade of the 1930s resulted in her Grand Prix of the 1935 International Singing Competition in Vienna and her parthership with Theodore Chaliapin in “Boris Godunov” in Teatr Wielki in Warsaw. Her bright strong soprano earned her the nick name of the Warsaw’s Nightingale. Her popularity increased after her participation next to Jadwiga Smosarska, in the film comedy “Dwie Joasie” (Two Joannas; 1935). Between 1937-39 Szczepańska also starred on stage of the popular Warsaw’s cabaret “8.15”.  Her interpretation of Gounod’s “Ave Maria” was the signature recording of the Warsaw Radio Station, until the very first days of the 2nd WW. During the German occupation of Poland, Lucyna Szczepańska unfortunately ignored the Polish artists’ boycott of the Nazi-administered theatres and she continued performing on the official stages, including the widely hated Theater der Stadt Warschau (formerly: Teatr Polski in Warsaw).  In 1945 she clandestinely left the communist-occupied Poland and lived in London, until 1956. Then, she emigrated to New York where she performed on the emigrant stages until 1976, when she decided to return to Warsaw.  

This recording was made by her in the turn of the 1940/50s in London, at the “Polonia” recording studio. It belonged to the Polish emigrants’cultural consortium Orbis Ltd., which was located in Knightsbridge, London and remained active as the publisher of Polish books, records and newspapers until the end of the 1970s.

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