Polish opera may be broadly understood to include operas staged in Poland and works written for foreign stages by Polish composers, as well as opera in the Polish language.
The tradition reaches back to Italian language entertainments of the baroque. Romantic opera in Polish flourished alongside nationalism after the partition and is exemplified by the work of Stanisław Moniuszko. In the 20th century Polish opera was exported and composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki wrote operas in other languages (Ubu Rex, Die Teufel von Loudun) that were translated into Polish later.