Director, actor, professor at the Theater Academy in Warsaw Ryszard Peryt died on January 23, 2019 at the age of 71.
He was a graduate of the Aleksander Zelwerowicz State Higher School of Theater in Warsaw. Together with Małgorzata Dziewulska and a group of PWST graduates, he founded Puławy Theater Studio, and then co-founded its Warsaw continuation – Studio Teatralne Stołecznej Estrady. In the 1970s, he was an actor at the Contemporary Theater and collaborated with Jerzy Grotowski at his Laboratory Theatre. He was a director at the National Theater under Adam Hanuszkiewicz. At that time he made his debut as an opera director: in 1977 in Słupsk, he staged two small operas by Mozart – The Impresarioand Bastien and Bastienne. From the 1980s, he directed only in opera theaters. He collaborated with the Grand Theater in Poznań, the Grand Theater in Łódź, and was the artistic director of the Warsaw Grand Theater – National Opera, the director of the Warsaw Chamber Opera under the direction of Stefan Sutkowski, and the director of the Polish Royal Opera. He also lectured at his Alma Mater and was one of the co-founders of the Opera Institute. His aim was to combine activities of students of the Theater Academy, the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music and the Academy of Fine Arts.
Ryszard Peryt is the only director in the world who staged all Mozart's operas, as well as all Monteverdi's stage works. He was one of the co-founders of the Mozart Festival. He also directed Baroque and contemporary operas. He carried out projects abroad as well: in Austria, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Italy, France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates. In 2018, Ryszard Peryt was honored with the annual award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage in the "Music" category.