King Ro­ger

What an opera, with its monumental archaic choral tableaux, its impressionistic soundscapes, its ecstatic rapture! For anyone experiencing Karol Szymanowski’s King Roger for the first time, it’s a mystery why this work is so rarely performed. Considered one of the most underrated operas ever, it also represents the composer at the peak of his genius.

The story itself is equally compelling, with the director Evgeny Titov interpreting it here as an existential journey in which the protagonist, King Roger II of Sicily, leaves behind all the stiff conventions of his former life and consciously chooses – before the majestically rising sun – to finally accept his own true, long-buried self. Guided by a mysterious shepherd who preaches a message of unconditional freedom, beauty, and sensuality, his journey is a long one, culminating in an orgiastic revel of Dionysian proportions…

Since premiering a hundred years ago, what is arguably the most important Polish opera of the first half of the twentieth century has, strangely enough, never been fully staged by any of Berlin’s major opera houses. Apart from concert performances and touring shows from Warsaw, Evgeny Titov’s production therefore represents an actual Berlin premiere. It’s high time to discover a nearly unknown – and certainly underrated – masterpiece!