{"id":8948,"date":"2025-07-17T21:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T19:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=8948"},"modified":"2025-07-17T21:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T19:13:08","slug":"the-shepherd-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=8948","title":{"rendered":"The Shepherd King"},"content":{"rendered":"

History has beautifully come full circle, almost on the centenary of the premiere of King Roger<\/em>, when most reviewers rightly interpreted Szymanowski\u2019s opera as a metaphor for the changes taking place in Europe\u2019s social consciousness at the time. In June 1926, after a performance at Warsaw\u2019s Teatr Wielki, Henryk Opie\u0144ski wrote about the victory of \u201cthe Dionysian concept of life over a king in the fetters of Byzantine religious rigour, his wife, his entourage and, finally, his entire people\u201d. The audience received the composer\u2019s new work surprisingly well, although it featured neither a clearly defined amorous intrigue, nor a murder leading to a plot twist, nor a final conclusion \u2013 none of the elements associated with opera, even in the minds of modernist spectators. The listeners were seduced primarily by the music: at the time Szymanowski was experimenting with pentatonics, dissonances and blurring of the transparency of \u201cEuropean\u201d harmonic verticals. There was as much Orient in the score as there was antiquity drowned in a modernist dream. As much a Greek \u2013 or essentially Nietzschean \u2013 dispute between the Apollonian and Dionysian elements, as a struggle with one\u2019s own longing, sensuality and sexual orientation.<\/p>\n

The few opponents accused King Roger<\/em> of either having a worthless libretto or going astray into Wagnerian epigonism. Ironically, Szymanowski\u2019s work is, indeed, a \u201cpost-Wagnerian\u201d opera, although it is by no means epigonic \u2013 the composer at time gets into a lively argument with the author of Parsifal<\/em> and Tristan und Isolde<\/em>, an argument ending with a mysterious hymn to the sun, an antithesis of \u201cLiebestod\u201d, as it were, in which the protagonist undergoes transfiguration not through death, but through worship of the life force, self-awareness, darkness-destroying power. Such a manifesto was needed at the time and was interpreted correctly in Europe, as is evidenced by, for example, the glowing reviews in the German press after a performance directed by Alexander Schum at the Stadttheater Duisburg in 1928, which made history primarily because of a demonstration by the nationalist Stahlhelm paramilitary militia. The real triumph, however, came with the premiere of King Roger<\/em> at the N\u00e1rodn\u00ed Divadlo in Prague, in 1932, in a staging by Josef Munclingr.<\/p>\n

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Crowd scene. In the foreground Vit Nosek (Edrisi) and Ji\u0159\u00ed Br\u00fcckler (Roger). Photo: Marek Olbrzymek<\/p>\n

Raised by his uncle Franti\u0161ek, a musician at the Municipal Theatre in Lviv, after the untimely death of both parents, Munclingr went on to study at the local conservatoire and at the philosophical faculty of the University of Lviv. He made his debut as an opera singer in 1911 at the age of just twenty-three, signing the bass role of Colline in La Boh\u00e8me.<\/em> One year later he was already singing in Prague. Before the outbreak of the Great War he became a soloist with the Stadttheater in Pozna\u0144. From there he moved to Warsaw, where he first got engaged by Teatr Wielki and then in 1919 he briefly joined the company of Teatr Sto\u0142eczny, also as a stage director. Szymanowski referred to him as \u201chalf-Czech, half-Pole\u201d. Although in 1921 Munclingr returned to the land of his ancestors for good, he never severed his ties with his adopted homeland. At Prague\u2019s N\u00e1rodn\u00ed Divadlo he not only staged\u00a0King Roger<\/em>, but also prepared the stage premiere of\u00a0Harnasie<\/em>. After the Second World War he appeared in the episodic role of Ku\u015bmirak in Aleksander Ford\u2019s film Border Street<\/em>. In addition, he appeared several times at the Pozna\u0144 and Wroc\u0142aw Opera Houses. He also translated Wyspia\u0144ski\u2019s tragedy Judges<\/em> into Czech. Yet he went down in history of primarily the Czechoslovak opera scene: as the performer of Dik\u00f3j and, at the same time, stage director of the famous Bratislava premiere of Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s Katya Kabanova<\/em>; as an outstanding stage director and theatre theorist; as a man who contributed to the heyday of Prague\u2019s N\u00e1rodn\u00ed Divadlo during Otakar Ostr\u010dil\u2019s musical directorship; as a true expressionist successfully pulling the domestic scene out of the greyness of bourgeois realism. He caused ferment in Brno as well: in 1951 he became an associate professor at the local Academy of Performing Arts, helping to establish the country\u2019s first opera directing department.<\/p>\n

Vladim\u00edr John, a recent graduate of the Brno Academy, made his debut on the Moravian stage precisely with King Roger.<\/em> And he was undoubtedly successful in that: lasting less than an hour and a half (with a few cuts in the score), played without an interval, the production turned out to be both a tribute to the tradition of modernist theatre and an attempt, modern in its spirit, to place the narrative of the opera beyond time and space. The attempt corresponds \u2013 paradoxically \u2013 with the intentions of Iwaszkiewicz and Szymanowski, who intended their work to be a clash of myth and archetypes with a crisis of the familiar world order, a parable, as it were, about the struggle of reason, emotion and subconsciousness, in which Sicily was only a pretext, an island from the composer\u2019s memories and phantasmagorias. It is difficult to say whether the Shepherd is a phantom from Roger\u2019s \u201cbloodied dreams\u201d, a newly discovered aspect of the ruler\u2019s personality \u2013 as the director suggests \u2013 or genuinely a stranger, an unknown god in human form, an incarnation of Dionysus, an emanation of Shiva, all in one?<\/p>\n

John\u2019s vision is presented in Martin Chocholou\u0161ek\u2019s sparse set, the essential elements of which remain unchanged, which does suggest that the conflict unfolds in the realm of spirit rather than matter. Perfectly lit by Martin Chloup, in Act One it creates an vivid illusion of the Cappella Palatina, bathed in dispersed rays of dusk; in Act Two it evokes the atmosphere of the Orient in a space filled with surreal shapes bringing to mind a parade of lingams, symbolic representations of the god Shiva; in Act Three it is striking in its contrast of darkness and blinding brightness of the interior of a mirror pyramid, where Roger completes his pilgrimage into himself and sets off into the mysterious dawn.<\/p>\n

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Veronika Rovn\u00e1 (Roxana), Ji\u0159\u00ed Br\u00fcckler and Vit Nosek. Photo: Marek Olbrzymek<\/p>\n

Chocholou\u0161ek\u2019s beautiful set design concept, irresistibly bringing to mind Munclingr\u2019s legendary stagings, was not quite matched by Barbora Ra\u0161kov\u00e1\u2019s costumes, which seemed to be coming from too many aesthetic orders: most convincing in the opening scenes with the chorus dressed in Bauhaus-inspired geometric attires, least convincing in the motley human-animal retinue of the Shepherd. What was also excessive was the choreography of Jan Kodet and Michal Heriban, who unnecessarily entrusted the singers with some of the dance tasks. These are, however, minor caveats: Vladim\u00edr John\u2019s impressive debut, the first staging of King Roger<\/em> in years in which the director has not superimposed additional layers of meaning on an already convoluted libretto, is another proof of the vitality of Czech opera theatre \u2013 one of the few in Europe that has not got into a rut and, miraculously, has not gone deaf to the music.<\/p>\n

And this time, too, there was something to listen to. It\u2019s been a long time since I saw such a coherent and thus thrilling take on Szymanowski\u2019s masterpiece as the one that came from the baton of Robert Kru\u017e\u00edk, the new music director of Jan\u00e1\u010dkovo divadlo as of next season. Kru\u017e\u00edk is a genuine opera conductor: he skilfully weighs the proportions between the stage and the orchestra pit, does not overwhelm with the power of sound, and gives room to both soloists and the well-prepared, masterfully dynamic choruses. Instead of stratifying the seemingly incoherent sound planes of King Roger<\/em>, he turned them into a glittering, colourful fresco, juxtaposing the hieratic chanting of the clergy with the sensual softness of the Shepherd\u2019s aria, the ecstasy of Roger with the oneiric nature of Roxana\u2019s song, the sweeping, tangled chords of Dionysian frenzy with the equivocal, \u201cdark\u201d clarity of the protagonist\u2019s final sacrifice.<\/p>\n

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Ji\u0159\u00ed Br\u00fcckler and Vit Nosek. Photo: Marek Olbrzymek<\/p>\n

Nor were there weaknesses in the solo cast either. Ji\u0159\u00ed Br\u00fcckler, who has a baritone that is mature and expressive, yet velvety and lyrical in timbre, created a highly convincing portrayal of the internally torn ruler. Veronika Rovn\u00e1, with her bright, colourful soprano and exceptionally smooth, musical phrasing, came to full form in the second act \u2013 if it had not been for the slightly too harsh top notes, her Roxana would have ranked among the top interpretations in the old, \u201cpre-war\u201d style, which for some reason has been abandoned by most Polish singers. The light tenor of Vit Nosek (Edrisi) consistently gained strength of expression over the course of the narrative. Jana Hrochov\u00e1 and David Szendiuch were excellent in the episodic roles of the Deaconess and the Archbishop.<\/p>\n

Yet I did not expect I would be so electrifyingly impressed by Petr Nekoranec as the Shepherd \u2013 judging from Szymanowski\u2019s correspondence, a role written with an almost impossible voice in mind: androgynous, ambiguous like Dionysus, amorphous like Shiva. And such a voice has indeed been found. Some peculiarities of Nekoranec\u2019s technique \u2013 a distinctive vibrato and a tendency to sing high notes in a mixed voice, nowadays generally frowned upon in the tenor repertoire \u2013 fit this part like a glove, especially when combined with his disturbingly sensual phrasing. This may have been the sound of Vladim\u00edr Tom\u0161, the Czech Shepherd from the 1932 Prague production. Perhaps it was under Tom\u0161\u2019s influence that the composer finally came to appreciate King Roger \u2013<\/em> writing with sadness after the Prague premiere that \u201cI probably won\u2019t be able write anything like this again\u201d. It\u2019s so good that someone can still sing it.<\/p>\n

Translated by: Anna Kijak<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

History has beautifully come full circle, almost on the centenary of the premiere of King Roger, when most reviewers rightly interpreted Szymanowski\u2019s opera as a metaphor for the changes taking place in Europe\u2019s social consciousness at the time. In June 1926, after a performance at Warsaw\u2019s Teatr Wielki, Henryk Opie\u0144ski wrote about the victory of … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-mangusta","4":"post-8948","6":"format-standard","7":"category-posts-in-english","8":"category-wedrowki-operowe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8952,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8948\/revisions\/8952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}