Malta Festival begins with love. But not the kind confined to a single definition. Romantic love, familial love, friendship, love for other people, for the world, for being together. It is around this idea that To Love! has been built – the opening concert that will launch this year’s edition of the festival by Lake Malta later today, 21 June. 

At 21:00, To Love! will take the stage – an open-air musical spectacle commissioned especially by Malta Festival. Well-known songs will be woven into a multi-part story exploring different experiences of love. Through specially prepared arrangements and medleys, the songs will flow seamlessly into one another, allowing the concert to unfold as a single, expansive composition. The line-up includes Grzegorz Turnau, Ralph Kaminski, Natalia Szroeder, Jakub Józef Orliński, Anna Maria Jopek, Natalia Przybysz, Anita Lipnicka, Zalia and Krzysztof Zalewski.

The evening begins at 19:00, when the gates open and DJ Gambit takes over the decks.

The festival day is worth starting a little earlier.

At 17:00, Freedom Square will host Épiphytes – a performance unfolding several metres above the ground, performed by four dancer-acrobats. Inspired by the world of plants, this production by the Belgian company Cie des Chaussons Rouges combines elements of circus, choreography and spatial installation. At its core are relationships built on trust, cooperation and mutual dependence. The artists will return with additional performances on Monday and Tuesday afternoon.

The day’s programme also includes The Un-Divine Comedy, directed by Piotr Pacześniak and presented by the Polish Theatre in Poznań. One of the theatre’s newest productions revisits Zygmunt Krasiński’s classic drama as a story of a world in crisis and people struggling to find their place in a rapidly changing reality. The performance will be presented twice, at 12:00 and 18:00. 

From 21 to 30 June, visitors can also explore Spaces of the Spectacle, an exhibition by Bohdan Cieślak at the Festival Centre in the UAP Gallery Nowa. Located in the very place where festivalgoers collect accreditations, ask questions and find information about the programme, the exhibition presents drawings, designs, models and photographs that reveal how theatrical scenographies come into being – from the first sketches to completed productions. It also includes materials connected with the history of Malta Festival.

21 June is only the beginning. Eight more days of concerts, performances, exhibitions and encounters lie ahead, turning Poznań into a festival city.

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To love!