# 20th Century Operatic Masterpieces: Part Twelve - Szymanowski's Król Roger



## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

20th Century Operatic Masterpieces: Part Twelve - Szymanowski's _Król Roger_



















As Nietzsche gave up the ghost on August 25, 1900, a generation was discovering itself in his vision of the Übermensch -- including composers Delius (Eine Messe des Lebens), Mahler (Symphony No. 1, "Titan"), Busoni (Doktor Faust), Richard Strauss (Also sprach Zarathustra, Ein Heldenleben), and Scriabin (Symphony No. 3, "Divine Poem," Prometheus -- Poem of Fire). Though the works of Strauss and Scriabin were close models for Szymanowski's early compositions, he absorbed Nietzsche more thoroughly than either of them. Through the war years, Szymanowski explored what Nietzsche had identified as the Dionysian pole of human experience -- Eros, ecstasy, intoxication, the chthonic -- in such works as the Masques for piano, the Symphony No. 3, "Song of the Night," and the Violin Concerto No. 1. When his cousin, poet Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, proposed in June 1918 a libretto to be written around "the initiation of the hero...into the Dionysian mysteries...against the background of the ruins of the theatre at Syracuse or Segesta," Szymanowski was enthusiastic, embracing the idea as a way of making his preoccupations articulate, explicit, and testamentary. Euripides' Bacchae provided a point of reference, though the libretto was spun around twelfth century King Roger II of Sicily (1095-1154), both for the cultural crossroads suggested -- Byzantine, Arabic, Greek, European -- and scenic effect ("...the Byzantine-Arabic palace interiors would be perfect," Szymanowski wrote. "Just imagine: tarnished gold and rigid patterns of mosaics as background, or Moorish filigree...."). Despite Iwaszkiewicz's rapid loss of interest and piecemeal delivery of the libretto, Szymanowski composed the first two acts of King Roger between 1918 and 1923. Meanwhile, having welcomed Poland's independence and taken up residence in Warsaw at the end of 1919, he became deeply identified with the creation of an ancestrally rooted, modern, specifically Polish music, for which he found inspiration in the raucously eloquent folk music of the Tatra mountains. Subjective concerns were supplanted by responsibility, with a new emphasis on the Apollonian pole of Nietzsche's philosophy, which Szymanowski tried to incorporate in King Roger, rewriting the libretto of Act Three in 1921. He failed to find, in T.S. Eliot's phrase, the "objective correlative" for the new viewpoint -- Roger's final monologue remains dramatically and musically unconvincing -- but realizing that a large portion of his most powerful music lay in King Roger, he forced himself to finish it with rising irritation. To Zofia Kochanska he wrote on August 12, 1924, "I am terribly tired, because that bit of the third act which remained to be done is a real instrumental-contrapuntal hocus-pocus, so unfortunately I am not sure that I have extricated myself from it with honour!" The self-parodying third act aside, King Roger is Szymanowski's largest and richest score -- subtle, grand, glowing, and evocative of an archetypal dimension that places it among such other testaments in music as Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, Berg's Lulu, Pfitzner's Palestrina, Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, and Busoni's Doktor Faust. The premiere was given at Warsaw's Teatr Wielki on June 19, 1926, conducted by Emil Mlynarski, with Szymanowski's sister, Stanislawa Szymanowska, taking the part of Roxana.

[Article taken from All Music Guide]

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For me, one of the greatest operas of the 20th Century --- absolutely stunning. This opera hails from the composer's impressionistic second period. Ravishing work. What do you guys think of this opera?


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Neo Romanza said:


> For me, one of the greatest operas of the 20th Century --- absolutely stunning. This opera hails from the composer's impressionistic second period. Ravishing work. What do you guys think of this opera?


I'm not a big opera fan, but this one I really do like (along with Wozzeck, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Le Grand Macabre)


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I like this opera a lot - especially the subtle way in which three different cultures are depicted in the music along with sense of sultriness which runs through the whole work. Reminds me somewhat of Delius at his most perfumed (if that makes any sense).


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## dko22 (Jun 22, 2021)

Roxanne's aria is probably the most beautiful not written by Janacek which is high praise coming from me. The opera as a whole is excellent and I was lucky enough to see a fine production here in Stuttgart a few years back. Perhaps Szymanowski's masterpiece (though I love his "Stabat Mater" and even more, the "Litany to the Virgin Mary")


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

dko22 said:


> Roxanne's aria is probably the most beautiful not written by Janacek which is high praise coming from me. The opera as a whole is excellent and I was lucky enough to see a fine production here in Stuttgart a few years back. Perhaps Szymanowski's masterpiece (though I love his "Stabat Mater" and even more, the "Litany to the Virgin Mary")


Anyone who loves Szymanowski's _Litany to the Virgin Mary_ as much as I do will forever be a friend of mine!

P. S. Also, a fan of Janáček is also a friend of mine!


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## dko22 (Jun 22, 2021)

it does seem we have fairly similar tastes in opera at any rate! Although my appreciation of opera is largely limited to Slavonic composers as I'm far from an opera buff in general. Nice to see someone else who appreciates the _Litany_


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

There's some bits where I don't quite agree with the balance and have some issues with the low register vocal writing – however, the sound world is extraordinary. So many shimmering colours...


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

composingmusic said:


> There's some bits where I don't quite agree with the balance and have some issues with the low register vocal writing – however, the sound world is extraordinary. So many shimmering colours...


Do you mean the low voices or the music written in the lower reaches of voices? What is problematic with it?


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Neo Romanza said:


> Anyone who loves Szymanowski's _Litany to the Virgin Mary_ as much as I do will forever be a friend of mine!


I love _Demeter_ - am I friend, too? 

*King Roger* reigns within my favorite 10 operas ... and I don't forsee any other future opera de-throning him from my Top 10.

If you're interested, Loek Dikker's film score for *The Fourth Man* is modeled upon Szymanowski's intoxicating chromaticism and one cue ("Ominous Ride") sounds like the opening of Act 2 from *King Roger*.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Prodromides said:


> I love _Demeter_ - am I friend, too?
> 
> *King Roger* reigns within my favorite 10 operas ... and I don't forsee any other future opera de-throning from my Top 10.
> 
> If you're interested, Loek Dikker's film score for *The Fourth Man* is modeled upon Szymanowski's intoxicating chromaticism and one cue ("Ominous Ride") sounds like the opening of Act 2 from *King Roger*.


Yes, well, I love _Demeter_ and the _Stabat Mater_ as well, so we can definitely be friends. As for the film music recommendation, I'll have to take a pass. I seldom listen to film music and, outside of the film itself, have little interest in it. I agree, however, with your high praise for _King Roger_.


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