Le roi Roger

Hearing and seeing 'King Roger' for the first time only at the end of May, via the 2015 Royal Opera House production, it compared extremely favourably among the other first time operatic viewings/hearings recently (one of the best in fact).

'King Roger' is one of Szymanowski's better-known works, but while it may not be for all tastes and neither the composer or the opera will be among my favourites any time soon like, as was said in my reviews for both the Royal Opera House and Bregenz productions, it does deserve to be better known. Szymanowski's music, with strong influences of early Stravinsky and late Wagner, is incredibly intriguing and not as inaccessible as initially feared, with plenty of rich sounds, hypnotically beautiful and intensely haunting sections, also surprisingly tuneful for a period when Expressionism was at its peak. While it is slightly static in places, the story is almost always compelling with some fascinating ideas and is easy to follow, even the ambiguous ending.

There are two productions available of 'King Roger'. One is the 2009 Bregenz production, which had some questionable staging touches with Act 3 falling into distaste and tack. However it was extremely well performed and compelling with some imaginative lighting that made the production values look more appealing when they potentially would not have been. Even better is the 2015 Royal Opera House production, which was a triumph and not just one of the house's best productions in a long time but also high on my list of favourite operatic productions viewed this year. Everything about it just clicked even for a production so heavy on symbolism (which turned out to be incredibly striking rather than bogging things.

Unfortunately, there is not much that connected with me with this dull, senseless and strange Krzysztof Warlikowski-directed production. It was apparently not well received when first performed, quite the opposite and that was an understatement with much of the critical mauling being directed at Warlikowski's staging, and one can see why. It is a real shame, because musically it is very good and actually saves the production from being unwatchable. The orchestral playing is as extravagant as Szymanowski's music, and they practically luxuriate in it while also giving hair-raising intensity and urgency. The chorus are on top form vocally and look constantly engaged with their music and staging. Kazushi Ono clearly enjoys the music and doesn't rush through it, yet always keeps the pulse and momentum going.

Mariusz Kwiecien is exceptional in the title role, a role tailor-made for him, and just for the record he is even better in the ROH performance. He sings gorgeously with a warm burnished sound, and dramatically he embodies the role which is more than Warlikowski's stage direction deserved. As with the Bregenz production, Olga Pasichnyk is a sensuous and deeply felt Roxana (appropriate for her Act 2 aria, with some of the most sensual music of the 20th century), and has some really ravishing quiet passages, mostly she sings with a silvery glittering gleam, though flexibility isn't always a strong suit and she at times does sound stretched in a role that maybe sounds better with a bigger voice. Eric Cutler also gives one of his better performances.

For all their outstanding efforts, they deserved far better in a production that visually and directorially is so bad that even the best of singers would be wasted. The production looks as though they were struggling with a low-budget, it all looks cheap and bare with no imaginative lighting or extravagant symbolism to make it more interesting.

Warlikowski's staging deserves a paragraph or two of its own, because it was bad and horrendously misconceived enough to single handedly bring down the production. This is my second exposure to his operatic directing (the first being his production of Cherubini's 'Medee' with Nadja Michael in the title role), and once again it shows a director who seemed to have no idea how to direct, or what to do with, the story or even know what the story is even about. Here, the story is completely disregarded, and replaced by stage business that while not exactly distasteful is dramatically sterile, with a general lack of chemistry and no intensity or emotion whatsoever, and bares no relevance or point to the point that it is impossible to comprehend what is going on. Which is what was meant when saying that it sounded like 'King Roger' but didn't in any way look or feel like 'King Roger'. The shepherd's entrance in particular is grossly miscalculated, almost feeling like a bad parody of Disney or something.

Overall, musically there are no complaints but Warlikowski's directing here is so poorly conceived that it beggars belief that he was allowed to go anywhere near, let alone direct a production of, any opera again. 4/10 Bethany Cox