King Roger is widely recognised as the most beautiful Polish opera, and international productions in recent years have been successful and provocative. Szymanowski's major opera was enthusiastically received in summer 2012 in the U.S., in the Santa Fe Opera's production, directed by Stephen Wadsworth with Mariusz Kwiecień in the lead. New productions are being planned in Chicago, by Covent Garden in London, La Scala in Milan and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The director Krzysztof Warlikowski's version with Kwiecień has been staged in Paris and Madrid, and director Mariusz Trelinski's second production traveled to Edinburgh and St. Petersburg, with the Mariinsky Opera conducted by maestro Valery Gergiev.
The new Spanish production of King Roger is co-produced with the Grand Theatre in Poznań and directed by Michał Znaniecki. Znaniecki made his debut as the youngest director to cooperate with La Scala, at age 24. Recognised for his great directing talent, he has worked in opera houses and theatres in Italy, France, Ireland and Poland since 1995. With his new Szymanowski production, Znaniecki returns to Bilbao following his Eugene Onegin last year. He casts Szymanowski's tale of King Roger II of ancient Sicily in contemporary times:
Our King Roger is a universal opera which attempts to pose the question of who we are today. Together with Mariusz Kwiecień we are carefully searching for each word of the piece. King Roger is a symbol of contemporary times and he is neither a mythical king nor a mythological one, but a normal human being who carries the burden of a king's responsibility.
King Roger has been described as a 'philosophical opera' drawing on Dionysian sensual debauchery and on the Apollonian cult of beauty and light. Szymanowski's sumptuous, distinctive score straddles the borders between opera and music drama, with the composer including elements of oratorio and performance inspired by the Orient. The first act, set during a Palermo Cathedral service, has King Roger, Queen Roxana and the loyal advisor Edrisi learn from church authorities that a new religion threatens the kingdom, and that its founder is a young, beautiful Shepherd. Summoned to the cathedral, the Shepherd is accused of offences against God. The royal couple is impressed by the Shepherd's virile humility and, despite aggression from church elders and the congregation, spare his life and summon him to the royal court.
In the second act, Roger, troubled by Roxana's growing fascination with the Shepherd, is justified when the pair disappear into the night with much of the court. Roger embarks on a long journey to find them. In an ancient temple ruin by the sea the Shepherd reveals his godly form and is praised by the royal couple – who then take radically different directions into the dawn, with the opera's powerful final chord resounding from the orchestra.
In the new production in Bilbao, Mariusz Kwiecień is joined by Iano Tamar as Queen Roxana and Jose Luis Sola as the Shepherd. The orchestra is conducted by Lukasz Borowicz, principal conductor of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, who works at the National Opera in Warsaw and with German orchestras. Of his performance as Roger, Kwiecień calls the King's characteristics 'rather difficult to describe, because the libretto gives numerous possibilities of interpretation. It is certain that King Roger is a person who is lost in contemporary time. It is really difficult to find the right tones and make the music fit his character.'
In an interview with Dorota Szwarcman for Polityka magazine before playing the role with the Santa Fe Opera, Kwiecień said:
I have taken up King Roger as my task for the years to come. An artist needs to have something like a role of his life. I climbed to the top with the role of Don Giovanni, and now I am free to promote my own ideas. I have only peformed the role of Roger on two stages, in Paris and in Madrid, and both of these performances were directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski. (...) In three years time, London's Covent Garden will stage the opera especially at my request. I am also in the process of working on a staging of the piece by the Met, and the director Peter Gelb has initially welcomed the idea.