King Roger 's premiere in Covent Garden will take place on May 1. Subsequent shows will be performed on the 6th, 9th, 12th, 16th and 19th May. The event is supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polska Music programme.
The virtual audience will be able to enjoy King Roger directed by the Royal Opera House Artistic Director Kasper Holten, for whom the genius of Szymanowski’s piece lies in its ambiguity, as it can be interpreted in different manners. The Danish director has so far staged more than 65 premieres, including Eugene Onegin, Don Giovanni and L’Ormindo for the Royal Opera House, and Idomeneo for Vienna State Opera.
The orchestra will be led by Italian conductor and Royal Opera Music Director Antonio Pappano. During his tenure, he has conducted an extensive repertory, including works by Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, Richard Strauss, Ravel and others. At the Royal Opera House, he also conducts a new production of Guillaume Tell. King Roger is the first cooperation of the conductor with Opera Director Kasper Holten.
A Polish baritone, Mariusz Kwiecień, will perform the role of King Roger, a role he has previously performed at the Santa Fe Opera, and in Madrid and Paris. He made his Royal Opera debut in 2005 as Marcello (La bohème). The cast also includes American soprano Georgia Jarman who sings the role of Roxana, Albanian tenor Saimir Pirgu, who performs the role of the Shepherd, British tenor Kim Begley, who sings the role of Edrisi, Irish bass Alan Ewing, who appears in the role of the Archbishop, and Polish mezzo-soprano Agnieszka Zwierko, who sings the role of the Deaconess.
Danish designer Steffen Aarfing makes his Royal Opera debut, having previously collaborated with Kasper Holten on a range of operatic productions, including La clemenza di Tito and La traviata in Stockholm, Le nozze di Figaro for Theater an der Wien, Lohengrin for Deutsche Oper Berlin and the film Juan (based on Don Giovanni).
The premiere at the Royal Opera House is a capstone for the years of work that the Adam Mickiewicz Institute has put into expansion of knowledge about Karol Szymanowski and into making his music a part of the international circulation.
Thanks to Polska Music's programme, Szymanowski’s music accompanied, among other projects, the tour of the London Symphony Orchestra (20 concerts in 2012/13, including a special cycle at the International Festival in Edinburgh), Chandos Records (recordings of BBC Symphony Orchestra’s interpretations, guided by Edward Gardner). The project has also supported two stagings of King Roger: in Santa Fe (dir. Stephen Wadsworth) and in Bilbao (dir. Michał Znaniecki). Concerts of the London Symphony Orchestra were broadcasted live on the MEZZO TV channel. Polska Music has also created an iPad application and a website dedicated to life and work of the famous composer.
Within the framework of the cultural programme of Poland’s Presidency to the Council of the European Union, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute has co-organised presentations of Szymanowski’s works in Brussels, Berlin, Minsk, Kiev, London, Madrid, Moscow, St-Petersburg, Paris and Beijing.
Source: press materials, culture.pl, transl. Agata Dudek