The Magic Mountain as part of the Malta Festival

It was a meeting of four strong artistic personalities who together transformed a literary classic into a powerful stage drama.

On June 26, 2015, Aula Artis hosted the premiere of a Malta Festival opera inspired by Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. The project was the result of a collaboration between composer Paweł Mykietyn, actor and director Andrzej Chyra, playwright Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk, and visual artist Mirosław Bałka.

The libretto, based on the novel, followed the story of Hans Castorp — his intellectual, emotional, and spiritual maturation during his stay in a Davos sanatorium. In this unique interpretation, Mann’s story acquired a new, darker dimension. The creators emphasized the dramatic threads of love, betrayal, revenge, and death, building a dense, unsettling narrative where spirituality collided with corporeality, and reflection with the brutality of the world.

The production demonstrated how contemporary art can engage with canonical literature — not as illustration, but as a personal, daring commentary on universal themes.