Hanka Ordonówna & Ork. Henryka Warsa -- Na pierwszy znak (At the First Sign) Slow-fox z filmu „Szpieg w masce" (from the Film „A Masked Spy") Muzyka: Henryk Wars, Tekst: Oldlen (Julian Tuwim), Syrena-Electro 1933 (Polish)
NOTE: In this great Polish hit -- one of the greatest in whole history of a Polish song -- three enormous talents had their meeting spot. The first one, most obviously, is Hanka ORDONÓWNA - actress and singer, la grande vedette of the Polish interwar film and theatre. Born Maria Anna Piertuszyńska in Warsaw in 1902, early in her chaildhood she attended the ballet school. In the age of 16, she was admitted to the ballet in the Grand Theatre in Warsaw, she also performed on stage of the cabaret Sphinx and in early 1920s also in the theatre "Wesoły Ul" (A Merry Beehive) in Lublin. It was the time, when Polish audience was going through the climax of Polish patriotic sentiments, evoked by the collapse of three tyrants, who had kept Poland in the state of partition for 150 years, as well as by the Polish victory in the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1920. Ordonówna's patriotic repertoire and a lot of soldier songs she included to it, gained her a great popularity. After returning to Warsaw, she got in 1925 the engagement in Qui pro Quo -- one of the best cabarets in prewar Poland - to which she remained faithful until its fall in 1931. The theatre made a great star of her. She sung the songs written for her by the best composers and writers, such as Julian Tuwim (Oldlen) or Jerzy Brzechwa. Yet the very peak of her career was her performance in the thriller movie "Szpieg w masce" (A Masked Spy; 1933) where she sung two songs, which were to become one of the largest Polish hits in history: the English waltz "Miłość ci wszystko wybaczy" (Love Will Forgive You Anything) and a glamourous slowfox "Na pierwszy znak" (At the First Sign) -- both compoosed by one of the best Polish bandleaders and composers of that time, HENRYK WARS. A celebrated poet JULIAN TUWIM wrote text to both of them. The Ordonowna's role in that movie -- albeit with difficulty ranked to her greater artistic achievements - was overshadowed by her magnificent vocal performance, belonging to this day to the most beautiful performances in the history of Polish film music. As a great star, she married in 1933 Count Michał Tyszkiewicz -- the fact which made her for the following years a front page celebrity. The passage of time has proven that her marriage was not calculated, and that true love united two of them. Tyszkiewicz often accompanied her in her artistic tournees, he also wrote lyrics to several of her songs. In last years before WW2 Ordonówna stood on the theshold of her grand international career, being better and better known and valued in Vienna, Berlin or in the United States. Her little voice reached the peak of the artistry, she could virtually sing anything and she was able to paint with her voice all emotional states of the soul. The lessons she used to take with Yvette Guilbert in Paris in the 1920s as well as artistical protection which for decades had been taken on her by the exquisite Qui pro Quo entrepreneur Fryderyk Jarossy -- the former member of the Russian cabaret "The Blue Bird" (Siniaja Ptica) in which he used to perform with Wiera Kholodnaya and Alexandre Vertinsky -- gave excellent results: Hanka Ordonówna became the Queen of the Polish song.
The catastrophe of the German-Soviet invasion on Poland in Sept1939, broke forever many lives and many artistic careers in Poland. Ordonówna was no exception: shortly after the beginning of German occupation of Warsaw, Ordonówna was arrested by Gestapo and imprisoned at the heavy jail of Pawiak. Released through intervention of her husband, whose high aristocratic rank in Europe was still of some importance to some nazi officers -- she travelled with him to his palace near Wilno, where she again tried to continue performing on stage -- until the takeover of Wilno and of the whole of Lithuania by the Red Army, in 1940. Both of them were arrested and sent to various places in the Soviet Unioon: Hanka to a labor camp in Uzbekistan and Michał Tyszkiewicz -- to one of the countless jails in the Gulag Archipelago in the USSR. The couple had to wait for their reunion until the outbreak of the German-Soviet war in June 1942 -- when they met again in Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan, where -- according to Sikorski-Stalin Pact the emigree Polish army was formed, out from the remnants of the Polish soldiers and officers who survived the Soviet jails and labor camps. Hanka Ordonówna found a rewarding job, taking care on the Polish Army's children orphanage and Michal Tyszkiewicz could also continue his military service. However, her health seriously weakened by heavy work and hunger in Russia, caused the reoccurence of tuberculosis in her and Hanka Ordonowna died in Beirut in 1950.
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