The opera Król Roger (King Roger) is being performed in Croatia for the first time as a co-production between the Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc Rijeka and the prestige Savonlinna Opera Festival of Finland.
The Savonlinna Opera Festival is one of the most significant opera festivals in Europe and this season in a coproduction with the Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc Rijeka it is staging one of the most significant opera works of the 20thcentury by the composer Karol Szymanowski. The European team and soloists assembled for the opera which is being staged for the first time in Croatia, an opera full of beautiful, intense, expressive, music, virtuoso arias and dramatic choral parts, tell the story of the rational and irrational, between order and chaos, truth and illusion.
The opera follows the Christian King Roger II who experiences enlightenment after a meeting with a young shepherd who represents pagan ideals and the complete opposite of everything that the king represents. In this confrontation, happiness and pleasure, chaos and death meet and intertwine. What happens when a self-confident ruler led by logic and order, a happy husband, a man who believes he has everything, clashes with a force more powerful than his own position, a force that compels him to revaluate his own life? Szymanowski examines the always current philosophical questions through the musical dualism of the main characters and choirs and clearly portrays their inner states.