The story of the protagonist, Hans Castorp, is one of a young European’s intellectual and emotional coming of age at the Berghof sanatorium in the Swiss city of Davos on the eve of the catastrophe of World War I. In this interpretation by Polish artists, the figure of Castorp is overshadowed by that of an American woman, whom Mann mentions in a single sentence at the beginning of the novel. He tells us that this woman has died and that Hans has moved into her room. In this staging, the American woman serves as a filter through which we consider the whole story. Her presence blurs the boundary between life and death and makes The Magic Mountain‚ a story of maturing unto death’, as the director puts it.

We can already say it is one of the most important pieces in twenty-first-century Polish music – not only because it so emphatically ushers in the twenty-first century.
— Tomasz Cyz, Ruch Muzyczny

Paweł Mykietyn, Andrzej Chyra and the performers really rose to the highest level. The Magic Mountain is the first exceptional Polish opera of the twenty-first century.
— Jacek Marczyński, Rzeczpospolita

Der Zauberberg Thomas Mann © S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, German