Król Roger Triumphs in London
The performance of one of Karol Szymanowski’s two operas, Krol Róger, which took place in Covent Garden in London, immediately conquered viewers' hearts. This was an especially historic triumph since this masterpiece had previously been neglected by European scenes.
The director of the production was Kaspar Holten. A striking stage design, prepared by Steffen Arfin, was positively dominated by a huge sculpted head. This element could be also treated as a suggestion that in Roger we recognize Szymanowski himself. Król Roger, as well as the composer who created him, had to struggle his inner conflicts; in Szymanowski’s case the problem lay in his homosexual inclinations, and as for Roger – it was a fight between the Dionysian and Apollonian elements of his soul. Michael White of the New York Times sums up the experience in a single sentence: 'this Covent Garden staging, which runs until May 19, was a must-see.'
Tom Service of The Guardian was equally enthusiastic:
...the three acts of King Roger contain some of the most ecstatic music ever written for the opera house. And as an operatic proposition, King Roger is an evening of unique concentration and attraction. I think it’s the perfect opera for anyone who hasn’t yet been to the opera house in the flesh: it lasts just 80 minutes, yet it should be a musical and dramatic spectacle of truly hyper-intense, super-operatic emotions, and with Kwiecien, you’ll get to hear arguably the finest exponent of the role anywhere in the world. Take your operatic chance to hear King Roger and follow the conflict that all of us must face between head and heart, between pleasure and rationality, between Dionysus and Apollo.
Rupert Christiansen of the Telegraph describes the evening as a triumph because of both the music and cast:
Szymanowski imbues the music with a magnificent oriental archaism: the influence of his Hungarian neighbour Bartok may be salient, but the flavour is more voluptuously romantic than formally modernist. (...) Antonio Pappano’s conducting of its intensities is masterly, and the orchestra luxuriates in them. All praise to the cast too. Despite pleading a cold, Mariusz Kwieicien, himself a Pole, is imposing and impassioned in the title-role, vividly conveying Roger’s anxiety about his sexual identity. Samir Pirgu is stretched to his limits by the Shepherd’s high-lying line, but grapples with it valiantly, while Georgia Jarman makes much of Roxana’s lovely arias of yielding and imploring. Renato Balsadonna’s chorus meets the challenge of much of the opera’s most original and complex music with total assurance.
Michael Church of the Independent also praises the cast:
The score has clear echoes of Strauss, Bartok, and Schreker, and the orchestration – performed with loving attention to detail under Antonio Pappano – is gracefully late-Romantic and intricate, though it finally fails to deliver the transcendence it promises. The singing - notably by Kwiecien, Jarman, and Pirgu – is superb.
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Sources: press materials, own materials. Edited by MK, 04/052015
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