The week was dominated by The Tale. I have tried to carve out as much time and space in my own head as possible for The Red, but with moderate success. However, Kóba, Wiktoryn, Malwa, Chana, Sława and the snake filled my entire imagination with again, if only for a while. Possessively. The piece emerged slowly and with some resistance during rehearsals. That resistance was probably caused by putting together very diverse ways of shaping matter: one involving control and keeping things in check, and the other – exactly the opposite. I could only hope – and I did – that in at a concert, with the audience, and, so to say, the fact that no sound can be taken back, everything would come together into a whole – one that might not be necessarily all that coherent, but all in all convincing. And (personally and subjectively) I was not disappointed. By the way, that lack of cohesion, what I came to realise only during the Q&A session (with myself, Radek Rak, Jacek Hawryluk and Bartek Chaciński), can be perceived as a kind of background programme in The Tale . It is also about being a stranger. About being in a skin that is not one’s own, which one can shed and take on another. All the while being both – the old incarnation and the new. About the discomfort of being yourself. I would like to thank Radek here for making me aware of this and of many more things; and for the text itself.

I am also deeply grateful to all the performers: the soloists (Adam Strug, Hubert Zemler), the choir members (Camerata Silesia led by Ania Szostak), the AUKSO musicians (in various configurations), Marek Moś, invaluable as always, and the entire auksodrone band led by Filip Berkowicz.

I was also thinking about Şeküre. Strictly speaking, I was thinking about Enişte and the death that awaits him shortly. He doesn’t know it yet and talks to a newcomer, whose identity is not clear to the viewer. And it is not supposed to be clear until the end. I struggle to choose which topics they are to talk about. Their discussion is important, it is pervading the entire novel and giving the right context to its other themes (like discussions of Mann’s Naphta and Settembrini, or Mellvill’s descriptions of extracting paraffin oil from a whale). But here it only needs to be hinted at, in barely a few words. Some would say it doesn’t have to at all, but, well, they are deeply wrong and I insist that yes, it does.

I’m still reading Byung-Chul Han, but I’m slowly giving up. Here and there I come across a sentence that is strikingly insightful and resonates deeply within me, but most of the time I don’t understand him, or I feel that I understand, but I deeply disagree. I think the diagnosis of the burnout of today’s man – the hollowing out and emptiness – is not inaccurate in itself, but it overlooks what emerges imperceptibly from over the horizon and gives many seemingly end-of-the-world events and qualities a new meaning (it has always happened so to date). But here I don’t insist. 

Next week won’t be easy either. Recordings will take place – The Tale will come first, and straight after –  Leśmian. I will fight.

PS. A poor choice of a words. I’m not going to fight, because fighting is what you do at the front. I will divide my attention, happily.

(transl. Magdalena Małek-Andrzejowska)