Moniuszko was born in Ubiel, Minsk Governorate (in present-day Belarus) in 1819 to a szlachta nobility of landowners from the eastern fringe of the Vilna Governorate of the already partitioned Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, its eastern subject, Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
In 1848 in Vilnius, he staged and conducted the premiere performance of the first, two-act version of his opera Halka.