Fidelio in Gdansk in the year of great anniversaries: 250 years of Ludwig van Beethoven, 40 years of the Solidarność trade union, 30 years of German unity and all of this in the city of freedom and Westerplatte, where the 2nd World War began. A work about freedom and totalitarianism, where the spirit burns and man consumes himself. Everything fit, Lech Wałęsa, my hero from the eighties, was invited, but a week before the premiere another guest came forward, COVID was his name. And the premiere was postponed for a year. Time enough to improve my Polish and to discover the Forest Opera/Opera Lesna for myself. For me? No, for Wagner’s works, performed open air in the middle of a forest in the twenties of the last century – a wildly romantic forest spectacle between Fafner and Waldvogel. A Baltic Opera Festival is announced, let’s see if it will happen.