On 17 January 1965, the twentieth anniversary of the libration of Warsaw, a statue of Stanisław Moniuszko was officially unveiled in front of the Teatr Wielki's left wing. The sculpture dates back to 1936, when artist Jan Szczepkowski made twin effigies of two major figures associated with the Teatr Wielki: Stanisław Moniuszko and Wojciech Bogusławski. During the Warsaw Uprising (1944) both statues were badly damaged; the figure of Moniuszko was later found by its maker in a shed in the Ministry of Culture and the Arts courtyard. Both sculptures were restored to their original shape and returned to their respective spots in time for the theatre's post-war reopening.

The statue portrays Stanislaw Moniuszko leaning against a hurdy-gurdy, the symbol of Polish folk music, which was a great influence on the composer, especially when writing the songs collected in Songbooks for Home Use. Moniuszko is dressed in a long coat over a frock coat and holds sheet music under his arm. The statue is over five meters high: cast in bronze, the two-meter figure of the composer stands on a plinth made of Finnish pink granite. The plinth is adorned with six reliefs featuring folk musicians reminiscent of a highland band and symbolising six attributes of stagecraft. Jan Szczepkowski (1878–1964) was a major Polish sculptor and a leading representative of Polish art deco. He trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. He found fame after the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in Paris, when the Polish pavilion dazzled the early 20th century artistic circles. Polish artists left Paris with 212 awards and accolades, including 35 Grands Prix. One of those went to Szczepkowski, who designed the interior of the Polish pavilion, for his Nativity Shrine. After the Parisian triumph, Szczepkowski became one of the most popular Polish sculptors. He received many commissions from the government. Before World War II he co-designed the decorations for the Sejm building and the reliefs adorning the facade of Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego in Warsaw. It is no wonder that he was asked to make the monumental statues of the two instrumental figures for Polish theatre and opera.

Szczepkowski's statue was not the first Moniuszko memorial in Warsaw. In 1887, thanks to the efforts of the Warsaw Music Society, Cyprian Godebski, an excellent Polish sculptor based in France who previously devised the Adam Mickiewicz statue in Warsaw, made a bust of Moniuszko in white marble. The sculpture was displayed at the All Saints Church in Grzybowski Square and destroyed in 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising. The composer's bust made by Hipolit Kasjan Marczewski unveiled in 1901 at the Teatr Wielki did not survive the war either.

The Moniuszko Statue in fornt of the Teatr Wielki today