Karwowska Maryla, actually Maria Olszewska, married name Popławska, *6 December 1903 Warsaw, †12 October 1967 Chicago, Polish singer (soprano). She took singing lessons with W. Brzeziński in Warsaw and in 1924 she was employed at the National Opera in Warsaw (debut in d’Albert’s The Dead Eyes), at which she worked until 1939. She sang more than 40 parts there, including Marzelline in Beethoven’s Fidelio, Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Eudoxie in Halévy’s La Juive, Alina in Żeleński’s Goplana, Hanna in Moniuszko’s The Haunted Manor, Nedda in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Leïla in Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, and title parts in Smetana’s The Bartered Bride and Massenet’s Manon. During the war, she made sporadic appearances, together with her husband, the tenor Janusz Popławski, on the operetta stage (Zeller’s Der Vogelhändler, Lehár’s The Land of Smiles). After the war, she returned to the reviving Opera as Rosina in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville (1946). Additionally, she sang also in operettas in Warsaw and Krakow, took part in numerous stage concerts, and a little later became involved in dramatic theatres in Szczecin. In 1954, she returned to Warsaw and performed at the Teatr Nowy, and at the operetta from 1955, with which she remained associated until 1966.
