"Straszny dwór" was first performed in the Teatr Wielki, Warsaw, on 28 September 1865, and received only two more performances before being banned by the censor of the tsar of Russian Empire which controlled Poland at the time. The Polish patriotic undertones of this piece were deemed dangerous, particularly as the January Uprising had ended only two and a half years earlier. Moniuszko lived until 1872 but the opera, considered his best and most original, was never performed again in his lifetime.