Król Roger

What an opera: powerful archaic choral tableaux, impressionistic sound magic, exhilarating ecstasy! Anyone who experiences Król Roger by Karol Szymanowski will hardly be able to understand why this work is so rarely on the game boards. It is considered one of the most underrated operas of all — and Szymanowski really shows himself here at the peak of his compositional art.

The story also has a lot to offer: Director Evgeny Titov sees it as an existential trip in the course of which the protagonist, King Roger II of Sicily, leaves behind all the frozen conventions of his previous life in order to finally — in the face of the majestically rising sun — consciously choose his own, his true and long-buried self. However, there is a long way to go and, with the help of an enigmatic shepherd who spreads the message of absolute freedom, beauty and sensuality, leads into an orgy of Dionysian proportions...

Premiered a hundred years ago, this arguably the most important Polish opera of the first half of the 20th century has, strangely enough, never been staged at one of the major opera houses in Berlin. Apart from concert performances and guest performance productions from Warsaw, Evgeny Titov's production is therefore a veritable Berlin premiere. It is high time to rediscover an almost unknown and certainly underrated masterpiece!

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