Opera on 3

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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

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Music: Classical: Opera

Programme presenting rare and fascinating operatic performances

Programme presenting rare and fascinating performances and vividly communicating the immediacy of the live experience

Opera on 3: Szymanowski: Krol Roger

Szymanowski's Krol Roger

Szymanowski: Krol Roger

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, Szymanowski: Krol Roger

Szymanowski's King Roger, from the Royal Opera House, conducted by Antonio Pappano.

Szymanowski's rarely performed masterpiece, King Roger, from the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, with Mariusz Kwiecien in the title role and conducted by Antonio Pappano.

Tonight's Opera on 3 is another chance to hear Szymanowski's rarely performed masterpiece, Król Roger (King Roger),  from the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden which was recorded live in May 2015.  It stars Mariusz Kwiecien in the title role, conducted by Antonio Pappano in the production by Kasper Holten.
 
Szymanowski's great opera, which had its premiere in 1926, grew out of his passion for Mediterranean culture as an amalgam of different peoples and religions. It also treats some of the themes that first appeared in his lost homoerotic novel Efebos. Set in 12th-century Sicily, the opera traces the journey to enlightenment of the Christian King Roger II through his encounter with a mysterious pagan Shepherd. While Roger's court call for the Shepherd to be put to death, Roger's queen Roxana urges her husband to accept the Shepherd's creed. Roger gradually realizes that he can only maintain his integrity by neither merely upholding the law of the church, or by yielding to the wild freedom (symbolised in abandoned dances) of the Shepherd and his followers. In his final ecstatic soliloquy, Roger attains self-realization.
 
Andrew McGregor introduces the performance that was originally heard live in May 2015.
 
King Roger II of Sicily.....Mariusz Kwiecien (Baritone)
Shepherd.....Saimir Pirgu (Tenor)
Roxana.....Georgia Jarman (Soprano)
Edrisi.....Kim Begley (Tenor)
Archbishop.....Alan Ewing (Bass)
Deaconess.....Agnes Zwierko (Mezzo-soprano)
The Royal Opera Chorus
The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Antonio Pappano (Conductor)

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