Jak w bibliotece Gustawa Herlinga-Grudzińskiego znalazła się partytura opery Il Prigioniero Luigiego Dallapiccoli?
How did the Score for Luigi Dallapicolla’s Il Prigioniero Find its Way to the Library of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński?

Summary/Abstract: In this article I would like to present an instance of collaboration between two eminent Polish artists in exile: the composer Roman Palester and the writer Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, which could have led (but did not) to the creation of a unique piece of art: an opera based on Grudzinski’s short novel The Tower with music by Palester. The starting point of this story is an attempt to explain how the score of Luigi Dallapiccola’s opera Il Prigioniero found its way to the writer’s library. The solution of this riddle is to be found in the letters of both artists. After a short outline of their lives and the artistic road both artists took from the moment they met, the author looks into the operatic fascinations of Palester, and briefly presents the history of the unfinished opera The Living Stones, and also quotes fragments of Palester’s letters to various writers concerning his search for the appropriate libretto. Finally, after many suggestions, it turns out that the best material for the composer was Grudziński’s short novel The Tower, which only needed slight adaptations. And it was exactly because of this, at the suggestion of Palester, that Herling bought Prigioniero’s score, which we can now find in the writer’s library. A long fragment from Grudziński’s letter shows us how deeply both artists were involved in this project. The project eventually failed. The rest of this article describes the further history of this project, trying to find out why the fantastic Grudzinski–Palester artistic duet never came into being. Finally, we look at some further collaborative projects by both exiles, which also failed.

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