Denis-Słoniewska Franciszka, *4 January 1907 Borysław, †4 May 1992 Warsaw, Polish singer (mezzosoprano). At the age of 14, she began performing with the Towarzystwo Śpiewcze Bojan ensemble, and shortly afterwards with J. Stadnik’s travelling Ukrainian theatre; she was probably engaged in 1929 by the choir of the Grand Theatre in Lviv, where she also performed small solo roles (Marthe in Gounod’s Faust, Marcellina in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville); at the same time, the director of the Lviv Conservatoire, A. Sołtys, admitted Denis-Słoniewska to study singing free of charge. In 1938, Denis-Słoniewska won the National Scholarship Competition organised by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education, and in 1939 she graduated from the Conservatoire, singing the title role in Bizet’s Carmen for her final examination. During the war, she sang at the opera in Lviv, which had been established by the Soviet authorities. In the spring of 1945, she arrived in Katowice as a repatriate and joined the ensemble of the newly formed Silesian Opera, where she enjoyed particular success in the roles of Carmen in Bizet’s opera and Amneris in Verdi’s Aida. In 1948 she moved to the opera in Poznań, and in 1949 she became a soloist at the opera in Warsaw, remaining there for 20 years until her retirement. Denis-Słoniewska’s greatest roles included the Widow in W. Żeleński’s Goplana, Ortrud in Wagner’s Lohengrin and Azucena in Verdi’s Il Trovatore. She was admired for her voice of extraordinary power, wide range and dark timbre, as well as for the strength of her stage presence.
