The origins of the Warsaw opera orchestra are closely linked with the activity of the National Theatre under Wojciech Bogusławski. At that time, the opera ensemble was led by two outstanding Polish composers and conductors: Józef Elsner and Karol Kurpiński. After the Second World War, the orchestra underwent a long process of rebuilding and artistic consolidation, eventually becoming the largest opera orchestra in Poland, capable of undertaking a wide range of ambitious artistic projects.
The orchestra has toured extensively with opera and ballet productions as well as symphonic concerts, appearing in cities including Berlin, Bonn, Bregenz, Brussels, Bucharest, Lisbon, Luxembourg, Madrid, Monte Carlo, Moscow, Paris, Sofia, Tel Aviv, Hong Kong, Muscat, Dubai, and numerous cities in Japan.
Its discography includes recordings of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, Stanisław Moniuszko’s Halka and The Haunted Manor, Modest Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Karol Szymanowski’s King Roger, and many others including excerpts from Giuseppe Verdi’s Il trovatore and Charles Gounod’s Faust.