Barbara Wysocka

Barbara Wysocka is an actress, theatre and opera director. She creates experimental multidisciplinary works combining installation, drama, documentary and music. Born in Warsaw, she graduated from both the acting and directing departments of the State Drama School in Kraków. Previously she studied violin at the Hochschüle für Musik, in Freiburg. In the academic year 2019-2020 she was Cornell Visiting Professor of Theatre at Swarthmore College.

Wysocka has been honoured with the Paszport Polityki for her debut opera production Glass’ The Fall of the House of Usher, the main acting award in the competition for staging early works of Polish literature for Idalia in Fantazy; and the Golden Yorick for her production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that she directed and also played Mark Antony.

Wysocka has directed Wyspiański’s The Curse, Bohomolec’s The Drunkards at Stary Teatr, Kraków; Handke’s Kaspar at Teatr Współczesny, Wrocław; Müller’s Volokolomsk Highway, Sophocles’ Philoctetes at Teatr Polski, Wrocław; Büchner’s Lenz, Dantons Tod at National Theatre, Warsaw; Woyzeck/Wozzeck after Büchner and Berg at Kammerspiele, Munich; Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Orwell’s 1984 for Teatr Powszechny, Warsaw and Schiller’s Don Karlos for Volkstheater, Vienna.

On the opera stage she has directed Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Bregenzer Festspiele, and for Polish National Opera: Glass’ The Fall of the House of Usher, Dusapin’s Medeamaterial to a libretto by Heiner Müller, the world premiere of Knapik’s Moby Dick, Różycki’s Eros i Psyche and Puccini’s Tosca. Current and future plans include returns to Polish National Opera and her debuts at the Staatsoper Berlin with Daniel Barenboim, Opéra de Lyon, Gran Teatre del Liceu, La Monnaie and the Opéra national de Paris among others.