Krol Roger, Royal Opera House, review: Szymanowski's opera gets a rare airing

The singing - notably by Kwiecien, Jarman, and Pirgu – is superb

Krol Rogers at the Royal Opera House (Royal Opera House)

It’s always a relief to see something new at Covent Garden, and Kasper Holten’s production of Krol Roger by Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) is the first in ROH history.

The gigantic head which fills the proscenium – symbolising the monolithic, life-denying culture the opera will tear down – allows the chorus’s opening Byzantine chant to conjure magnificence.

We are in a place at once exotic and contemporary, and the plot is quickly set up: sexually-frigid King Roger (Mariusz Kwiecien) is confronted by a charismatic shepherd-prophet (Saimir Pirgu) who, egged on by frustrated Queen Roxana (Georgia Jarman), preaches the pleasures of the flesh. Things fall apart – here with a Fascist gloss – and we leave Roger transfigured, the future unknown.

Beautifully designed by Steffen Aarfing, this show presents a Freudian drama taking place inside Roger’s head, as instinct battles with rationality, reflecting Szymanowski’s autobiographical psychodrama where the writhing naked male figures swarming through the basement of Roger’s palace stand for his own homosexual desires.

But the thin plot has no characterisation, so singers, conductor and orchestra must carry the evening unaided. The score has clear echoes of Strauss, Bartok, and Schreker, and the orchestration – performed with loving attention to detail under Antonio Pappano – is gracefully late-Romantic and intricate, though it finally fails to deliver the transcendence it promises. The singing - notably by Kwiecien, Jarman, and Pirgu – is superb.