King Roger, Santa Fe Opera, August 9 2012

Santa Fe Opera tries to do a world premiere or at least an American premiere every year. This year the closest that they got to that goal was Karol Szymanowski’s King Roger, which was written in 1918-1924, premiered in Warsaw in 1926, and not performed in the US until 1981 when the St. Louis Symphony gave it in a concert performance. Long Beach Opera did the first American staged performance in 1988.

Like Handel’s Semele, a concert performance is not unreasonable, as both works straddle the boundary between oratorio and opera. King Roger, in particular, is very much a “thinky” piece; not much happens. A shepherd brings a message of joy, pleasure, and lust to a 12th-century Byzantine kingdom in Sicily, a message contrary to the established customs. The Queen, the people, and ultimately King Roger himself are drawn to the shepherd’s way of thinking.

The staging was simple, but not much staging was needed. King Roger had a throne, set on a platform about four inches high, the platform bordered by a short (six-inch) metal fence. At the back of the stage, about ten feet above the stage, was a projection that changed for each act. In act 1 we saw a modern, subtly Picasso-like rendition of golden Byzantine art. Act 2 featured a “starry night” sort of backdrop. In act 3, I could only think of a photomicrograph of the surface of an aluminum skillet. The only other props were chairs for the chorus. As act 1 commenced, members of the chorus gradually drifted in and took their seats; I was pleased to note that our tenor from Opera San Jose, Michael Dailey, was seated front and center. The chorus members were dressed in costumes from many different times and places and walks of life.

Our cast:
Roxana: Erin Morley
Shepherd: William Burden
Edrisi: Dennis Petersen
King Roger: Mariusz Kwiecien
Archbishop: Raymond Aceto
Conductor: Evan Rogister
Director: Stephen Wadsworth

All of the first-rate cast performed superbly, giving their all to this operatic rarity and making a strong case for it. At the end, I still didn’t “get it,” but I did come away with the feeling that this could be important music, worth repeated hearing. I hope to get more out of repeated hearings than I did from four iterations of Nixon in China. Somewhat short of a beta.