Witold Gombrowicz’s work was performed for the first time with the production of Ivona at the Polish Army Theater in Warsaw’s Palace of Culture and Science in November 1957. The theater was baptized “Teatr Dramatyczny” on this occasion. The name remains today.
Halina Mikołajska directed the production. Barbara Krafftówna played Ivona.
Communist Poland then experienced a short political thaw, during which Witold Gombrowicz’s work saw publication, with the exception of the Diary.
In February 1958, after two months of performances, Ivona was pulled from the stage. Gombrowicz’s work would not be published in Poland again until 1986; however, his dramas would see production there from 1974 on.
In 1965, Alf Sjöberg directs Ivona, Princess of Burgundia at the Royal Dramatic Theater of Stockholm. A year later, Sjöbeg will direct The Marriage, which will set off talk of Gombrowicz as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
In 1965, Alf Sjöberg directs Ivona, Princess of Burgundia at the Royal Dramatic Theater of Stockholm. A year later, Sjöbeg will direct The Marriage, which will set off talk of Gombrowicz as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Ivona, Princess of Burgundia is the most-performed of Witold Gombrowicz’s plays worldwide.
Ivona, Princess of Burgundia was also adapted as an opera four times, twice in Germany (Wuppertal, 1973, music by Boris Blacher, directed by Kurt Horres; Krefeld, 1998, music by Olrich Wagner, directed by Marcus Lobbes), in France (Paris, 2004, Music by Zygmunt Krauze, directed by Grzegorz Jarzyne), once in Poland (Warsaw, 2004, the Paris score by Zygmunt Krauze, directed by Marek Weiss-Grzeziński), and again in France (Paris, 2009, music by Philippe Boesmans, directed by Luc Bondy).