Stanislaw Moniuszko was born on 5 May, 1819 at Ubiel, near Minsk (in Belarus) to a noble family. Joseph, great grandfather of the composer, was Grand Chamberlain to the Prince of Lithuania. His grandfather Stanislaw was a judge at the court martial of the Principality, and his father Cheslaw was a magistrate. The uncles, graduates of Vilna University, were filled with the ideas of Enlightenment: democracy, social progress, patriotism and devotion to their native country.

When still a child, Moniuszko showed an unusual musical talent. This talent was cultivated first at home by his mother, an excellent musician, with singing, playing the piano and the harp, and then by music teachers over a three-year stay in Warsaw. Once eighteen, Moniuszko went to study in Berlin where he was taught privately by C.F. Rungenhagen [and received a perfect education in composition, as good as any great European composer of the time].

Moniuszko's first compositions were melodies which he published in collections under the title Home Melodies. These pieces, varying in subject and character, represent a collection of more than three hundred melodies. He also wrote lighter compositions for the stage (operettas) which lead the way to his later operas From the outset, his music was imbued with a strong national character much influenced by folk music, not only Polish but also Lithuanian and Belarusian.

His first opera, Halka, was first played in a two-part concert in Vilnius in 1848, and a few years later, in the theatre of the same city. He had to wait ten years (for a change in cultural politics in 1858) before finally seeing this opera represented in its new four-act version at the Opera in Warsaw. The work achieved great success and became the first Polish national opera. Moniuszko himself was invited to Warsaw to assume the post of director (conductor) of the Opera and to enlarge the repertoire of the opera, (mostly Italian until then) to include Polish works. He composed many operas: The Shipwrecked Men, The Countess, Verbum Nobile. This run of successes was interrupted by growing political tension and patriotic manifestations. Moniuszko's endeavours to have his operas performed in Paris were interrupted by the Uprising of January 1863.

Another of his operas, The Haunted Manor, was a great Polish patriotic work and as such, was banned by Russian censors. A few years later Moniuszko produced his last opera Paria. Over the years following the Uprising, his opera Halka was staged in cultural centres in several countries: first in Prague, conducted by B. Smetana, then in Moscow, and finally in St. Petersburg, where it met with great success. Stanislaw Moniuszko died in Warsaw on 4 June, 1872.