Opera Australia – Szymanowski’s King Roger. February 2, 2017.

Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House.  Circle (Seat L19, $79.)

Story.  The scenario of the opera is based on Euripides’ The Bacchae about Roger II, a 12^th century Sicilian king.  The self-proclaimed shepherd comes into town to preach a new, strange faith based on letting go of inhibitions and embracing pleasure.  While the Archbishop and Deaconess demand the Shepherd be executed, the king hesitates.  The Shepherd succeeds in drawing the crowd and Roger’s wife Roxana to follow after him.  Roger follows.  The Shepherd takes over power and Roger becomes the one on trial.  The Shepherd reveals himself as the god of pure pleasure, and his followers ignite a book-burning bonfire.  Roger succeeds in resisting the Shepherd, and the opera ends with a bright light signaling the dawn of a new day.

Conductor – Andrea Molino; King Roger of Sicily – Michael Honeyman, Roxana – Lorina Gore, Edrisi (Roger’s advisor) – James Egglestone, Shepherd – Saimir Pirgu.

The only encounters I had with Szymanowski was his concerto, which I heard twice, with one of those times by Glenn Dicterow.  I remember scratching my head after each performance.  I wondered what today’s experience would be like.

The first thing one notices about the opera is its brevity.  The entire evening lasts 1:50, with a 30 minute intermission.  One wonders if a 1:20 hour long opera really needs an intermission.  I guess if you are charging over A$300 for some seats, you may want to make the opera a bit more substantial; and you get to sell some refreshments during “the interval.”

Each of the three acts has its set, but with the same backdrop of a curved wall with windows.  For the first act the center is dominated by a huge head whose expression changes as different images are projected onto it.  The head is turned around to expose three levels where some of the action takes place.  At the bottom you have these make dancers that probably represent pleasure.  For the third act there is a bonfire in the middle, the intensity of the flame gets to be quite high during the peak of the book burning session.

In reading up about the opera on Opera Australia’s website and the small handout, this opera is supposed to reflect the battle Szymanowski finds within himself, which may be particularly poignant as he was a gay man in the early 1900s.  The handout describes how difficult it is to represent “inner conflict” on stage.

Overall I must say I have a very limited appreciation of the opera.  The music was best described as dialog with some variation in pitch here or there.  I actually tried listening to the orchestra to see if I got more out of it, and I didn’t.  I did appreciate how precise it was though.  As far as the drama goes, I couldn’t resonate with whatever Roger may be struggling with, or how difficult it was to resist temptation.  The staging is interesting, but I can’t tell you how it relates to the story, or even how it denotes inner conflict.

If I must say something good about the experience, the first (and serious) one would be it is short.  Actually the singers were all strong, and amazing in how they can memorize the language (I am sure none of them was a native Polish speaker) or the tunes, such as they were.  While they could be way off and I wouldn’t be able to tell, they were in pitch the times their notes met the orchestra’s.  The name Pirgu sounded familiar, and a search of this blog returns the time he sang Alfredo to Damrau’s Violetta in La Traviata (where Domingo was Germont.)

Syzmanowski didn’t call this work an opera, calling it a “Sicilian Drama” instead.  He also had a more “conservative” ending because the First World War taught him there had to be limits.

 Curtain Call.  In front are Deaconess, Edrisi, The Shepherd, Maestro Molino, King Roger, Queen Roxana, and the Archbishop.

The applause was more enthusiastic than last night.  Tim attributed that to only real aficionados would go to an opera like this, I am less sanguine about the motivation.

There were quite a few empty seats in the Circle, we moved up a couple of rows before the performance started.  The price was again discounted by 20%.  When Tim bought the tickets, the agent told him this was a “once a lifetime experience.”  To which I would add “… not to be repeated.”  All complaints aside, Opera Australia should be admired for its courage in bringing out rarely performed operas.

The review by Lime Light Magazine is glowing.  Together with what it wrote about last night’s opera, I wonder if there is a mean bone in the reviewer, or if he is employed by Opera Australia.

Tim drove to the Opera House, so it was an easy in-and-out.  And I am wrapping this review up around 11:30 pm the same evening.